Writing and lawnmowers

The goal was to write every day. Without fail. Without making excuses.

And yes, there was the flu week. The days of fever and wheezing and general nastiness. If I had managed to drag my aching fingers to the keyboard who knows what drivel would have poured forth (I’ll resist a tempting snot analogy). Those days I give myself a pass.

But what of December 2, 3, and 5? What’s my excuse for not coming here and doing what I love: making pictures with words, coaxing characters onto the screen?

I get distracted, sidetracked. There were years when I kept an online journal with daily accounts, anecdotes, and creative wanderings. And then it would stop. And start again. Humming and whirring away — and then clunk. Over. Like my mom’s old lawnmower: the slightest little rock or wrongly-shaped blade of grass and it sputters to a stop. Almost offended. And then it takes so many cranks to re-start that it doesn’t seem worth all the effort to get it going again.

I am not exactly like a lawnmower. The comparison ends at both the ease of quitting the job and the difficulty in restarting it.

I do not attack writing with the viciousness of shearing blades.
I would like to think that I create instead of destroy.
I do not follow a linear path, back and forth across the page until the job is done. Because sometimes I write poetry.

As as much as I like to anthropomorphize, I do not think that a lawnmower actually enjoys the task of cutting grass. I would think that mowing the lawn ranks pretty high on the monotony list. And while writing can be a chore sometimes, I actually enjoy it (when I’m not avoiding it).

So what do I need to do on days when the motor won’t start or imperfect greenery threatens?

Get a pushmower. Or a weed-whacker. Or maybe even just a pair of scissors. Approach with a different perspective. And just get it done.