No, You Shut Up!

Every week I say to myself, “This is the week! This is the week I start to get my act together! I will write more. I will work a little every day to get my house cleaned and organized. I will run. I will do those exercises for my back…” The list goes on. Oh, I do not expect to magically be the neat, organized, healthy, non-back-hurting, writing five pages a day paragon of my dreams (why five pages? why not ten? Oh yes, I am setting realistic goals). I expect myself to do a little every day. Ten minutes, just ten minutes. You can do a lot of cleaning in ten minutes. IT! COULD! WORK! (That is from Young Frankenstein, by the way.)

And then I don’t do much. Ten minutes of cleaning is apparently too much to ask. I hold tight to what little I manage to do: a few loads of laundry, at least three days of running (including Saturday and Sunday), a few blog posts (why is it so hard to be a daily blogger? I used to post every day! What the hell, me?). I put together a murder mystery, with lots of help from my friends. Doesn’t that count for something? I think it does.

One other thing: I was keeping this on the down low, because I was afraid it would not work out, and in fact it hasn’t. But week before last I wrote several pages of notes on a Victoria Holt-type romance novel, influenced also by Jane Eyre, with a little Georgette Heyer thrown in. It was a lot of fun writing the notes. I had a little trouble with character names. Unfortunately, I was unable to begin actually writing said novel. Still, I wrote a LOT of notes. Ideas just poured out of me! Surely that counts for something (and I will call you Shirley if I want to).

All this by way of trying not to beat myself up for not posting either Saturday or Sunday. Here I sit Monday morning, ten finger typing on the laptop (dining-room-tabletop, really) (I must buy myself a new laptop), and viewing the upcoming week with trepidation. Will this be the week I finally do it? That I finally do something?

At least I have written a blog post of over 400 words. I think some bloggers like to read that others have trouble writing. I personally do not find tough love helpful. You know, when they say, “There is no such thing as Writer’s Block! Just shut up and write!” But perhaps this week I will try to do just that. Only without the shut up part, because, you know, I like to make a blog post.