Resistance
I tell my students that writing is often the quickest way to get everything else done. I sit down at my laptop, open the file for my book. . .and remember that I need to clean my bathrooms. I need to vacuum the family room. I need to pay bills. I need to clean the litter box. Cleaning the litter box is onerous but somehow I prefer that to sitting down to work on my book.
I have been working on this book for just about five years now, ever since I wrote the first line while I was at a writer’s conference in Swannanoa NC in the summer of 2001. At first, writing the book was a joy–and it was especially a joy in the fall of 2004, when I was on sabbatical from the university where I teach and could go every morning to a Border’s near my house, set up my laptop, order my large coffee, and sit down to write. Since then, however–sporadic at best. Partly, this is because I have struggled with finding the direction of the book but partly–the primary reason–is resistance, pure and simple. Fear of the blank page–or, rather, fear of the blank screen.
As I get older, I find it harder to overcome the resistance. When I was a young writer, it seemed easier. I didn’t mind failing, maybe–or perhaps I didn’t think I could fail. Perhaps it’s a writer’s version of this:
Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger recently cracked up his Suzuki Hayabusa, which the manufacturer calls “the fastest street legal motorcycle on the market,” according to a story about the accident in the New York Times. Roethlisberger was not wearing a helmet, according to the reports. A story in a recent Sporting News reported that the quarterback–who had previously described himself as conservative, someone who doesn’t take unnecessary chances–just didn’t think an accident could happen to him.
As a young writer, maybe, I thought bad writing couldn’t happen. I was too enamored of taking the prose out for a high speed run and the feel of the machine was enough: look at me; God, that wind is a rush, God that feeling of speed is amazing. The ride was enough. Now, perhaps I resist because I am too conscious of the getting there, of the arrival–and don’t pay enough attention to the ride itself.
