Friday, July 12, 2013

How to Avoid Writing


Examine writing space. Decide that it's too shabby and rundown to be conducive to good creative flow. Think about redecorating.

Go to paint store. Buy paint for writing space, and as long as you're there for the upstairs bathroom, the hallway, the dining room and the back door to the house.

Realize that it's too humid to paint. Nothing will dry. Store paint in cellar.

Boot computer.

Read email.

Do Facebook.

Play four rounds of Shoo Boo.

Realize that Turner Classic Movies is having a John Gilbert festival. You love John Gilbert. Those eyes. that hair.

Watch three John Gilbert movies.



Turn off television. Make dinner. Eat dinner. Wash dishes.

Boot computer. Realize that it's too hot to be conducive to good creative flow.

Play two more rounds of Shoo Boo.

Realize you're too sleepy to play Shoo Boo.

Brush teeth. Take pill. Resolve to write something tomorrow, or if it's not so humid, to paint something.

Turn in.

Kate Gallison

9 comments:

  1. I'm printing this out and putting it right next to Sheila's "Write Now. Right Now." I'll have a call to action next to a "not so fast."
    A sense of balance is so important in life.
    Steph

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  2. Now, let's be real practical. If you buy only one shade of paint that will cut down time of indecision and you'll get to sit at your desk quicker and write your darlings lots sooner. If you order KFC for dinner, that will save prep time and wash up time. If you drink a lot of caffeine before bedtime, you'll be wide awake and stay up most of the night working on the writing. See, boys and girls, how easy it is!!!!! tjs

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    Replies
    1. I'm thinking about coming up with a few 30-minutes-I-mean-it main dishes for writers. But we won't have solved the clean-up issue. That's a drawback to cooking. You feel better till you look at the sink.

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  3. But Thelma, doesn't the cholesterol and salt from the KFC clog your arteries and hinder blood flow to brain thereby stoping all creative thought and impulse?
    Surely there is a healthier way to approach this
    Steph

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  4. The food isn't my problem, ladies. It's the Shoo Boo. I see it now. But the seduction of winning the game is irresistible… You see, if you can pop all the different colored bubbles on the screen before the next row comes down, then all the bubbles that come down are the same color, so that with one stroke you can… it's… Okay, perhaps it might be better to have written something.

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  5. Maybe if you set a target of writing the name Shoo Boo ten million times in x minutes, it might cure you of this. You could think mentally that you were writing words in a novel, instead of Shoo Boo, etc. Goodness me, ladies, let's change the subject. Where do you think that Snowden guy is off to? teejayhay

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  6. I have to confess, Kate, that I looked at Shoo Boo and I didn't get it, I guess. I guess that's just as well.
    Steph

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  7. It is just as well, Steph. But you DO get John Gilbert, right?

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  8. Oh the hours I can waste watching old movies (new ones, too, now I think about it). I have a photo of Ronald Coleman that is beyond gorgeous. I wish I could share here as an attachment. He was the total inspiration for a character in my next book. When Madeleine Carroll puts her hands on his bowed head at the end of Prisoner of Zenda . . . I get weepy just thinking about it.

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