you guys. I know all about writers block. Or not having the energy to write. Or read. Or not eat lots and lots of chocolate ice cream bars.
In the past month I have started 5698 books. I love starting books.
I love it.
I could start a book for every person who reads this blog. I’ll send it to you and you can finish it for me and then put me in the acknowledgements. I’ll also send starts of books to your husbands, your boyfriends, your boyfriends sisters, and your dog. That’s how many books I start. It’s a problem.
The other problem I have is this quote that the wonderful Kristyn Crow put on facebook by Madeleine L’Engle
”I write because I am stuck with being a writer. This is what I am. It is the premise on which my whole life is built. There have been occasions when a puritan conscience has impelled me to try to spend more time and creative energy on such things as making better pie crust and moving furniture to get at every speck of dust. I have finally, and with humility, learned that I am a better wife and a better mother when I am writing than when I am baking; and if my children often have to call, ‘Mother, get away from the typewriter, the peas are burning,’ I still have more time to give them my undivided attention when I am in the midst of an exciting sequence in a book than when I am grappling with the mysteries of the vacuum cleaner” -Madeline L’Engle (A Sense of Story 127).



The beginning is the hardest part! sure, I’ll take a great first chapter!
I love Madeline L’Engle and admit I’m not as familiar with my vacuum (or my dish scrubber) as my family wishes I were.
I’ll send you a first paragraph. How’s that?
Send me a beginning! I’d love to see where I can take it. Writing is super-important to me, but it’s not as all-or-nothing to me as it used to be. I have to have some sort of balance to function well. But I admit, I feel pretty awesome after sweating over the keyboard!
It does feel awesome. I’m with you. And I’m going to send you something soon.
thank you for all your delightful posts, andeecandee… sometimes I am too busy grappling with the mysteries of the vaccuum cleaner to express my appreciation… and yes, I would love one of those beginnings
Thank you, Martine. And I will send you a beginning very very soon.
Yes. Send me a beginning. I need all the help I can get! Writing is not the premise on which my life is built. In fact, I keep trying to quit. So far, I can’t. But I am working on finding balance.
Stop trying to quit, Debbie! You can’t. I can’t either even if writing is not the premise on which my life is built. I’ll send one soon.
I would start writing a bazillion books but Carol told me I can’t start another novel until I finish the one I’m working on haha. Don’t send me a beginning because then I’ll want to write it and I’m not finished with the first one! Great insights, thanks!
It’s addicting, huh? The promise of stories. But then the work that comes after is the worst.