Monday, January 30, 2012

I Heard the News Today, Oh Boy

I have actually had some loyal BC readers (all of whom are both attractive and intelligent) ask me when I do my writing. Now, usually only other writers are interested in how and where other writers write, so it's nice see that readers and other people have an interest in this question. When people ask me this, my initial thought is "In the kitchen...with a knife..." but I usually mumble something like "Whenever I get to it," or "When I'm slammed up against a deadline." So, there's nothing much to see there but I don't want to disappoint units of loyal readers so I thought I'd make the topic a bit more grandiose and write about (cue the trumpet fanfare):

A Day in the Writing Life

Alert readers (and you are all indeed alert and rested) will notice the steals from the Beatles song of the same name and wonder if this will end with me "blowing my mind out in a car," either literally or figuratively or both.  Well, I'm writing this, after all, so the answer is "No," both literally and figuratively. I wouldn't do that either way because I would impede traffic and that really hacks off other drivers and creates a backup which is reported from the Glass Enclosed Nerve Center of WTOP 103.5 (note to 'TOP: please lose the GENC label! You're on the radio! No one knows or cares if the working space is enclosed by glass, cardboard or leftover pizza, which, since we're told that it is fueled by a certain kind of pizza, it probably is.)

Actually, since every day is a little different and I never know when I'll be writing, let's just say that I do it at various times during the way and for different lengths of time. When I was teaching, I soon  found that if I could use little pockets of time to look at some of the omnipresent papers I carried with me at all times like a bad skin rash (I know, ewwwwww! Gross simile of the week!) It gets the job done, as someone once said.

So, in answer to the question "When do you write?" I would have to say at all times and at no time. And this, as Hamlet said, was sometime a paradox.

2 comments:

  1. YES!!!! The 'glass-enclosed-nerve-center' drives me absolutely CRAZY. I detest that. Can we start a Twitter campaign or something???

    But that wasn't what you were writing about. I, too, get that question, and if I can find the piece I wrote on that, I will send it to you. BTW, in the conservatory, with a hammer.

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  2. Like you, Dan, I do not write on a schedule. I don't write for a magazine or newspaper, so I never have to face a deadline. I write when I have something I want to write about. I might write once a week, or I may not write for two or three months. I enjoy writing, so what I need to do is get my lazy bones out of my recliner and make myself write more often. I guess I have just made a very late New Year's resolution.

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