They banished me from the living room because I was watching Family Guy and not doing this. It was the right move. I want to believe that every writer battles with the twin headed viper of distraction and laziness. This is likely less true than I wish it were. Haruki Murakami famously rises at 4 am and writes for 5 or 6 hours followed by a 10k run or a 1500m swim. Honestly, I’d like to watch him do it and then, when he’s finished, punch him in the teeth. It is my way of saying, “Thanks for setting the bar so damn high.”
E.B. White once said (as with Murakami he said such to the famous Paris Review,“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.” Indeed he is speaking of the excuse we often claim of not having the proper conditions to write. I used to write on the bus or train coming and going to school. I found any chance, any scrap of paper, any opportunity to put word on page. I wrote so much that it became a way of life. Today other things and thoughts are a way of life. My children and their hobbies dominate my mental. I don’t know how to balance how much I think about their stuff with giving thoughts over to the story world. I want to.
I want a lot of things that I don’t make enough effort to obtain. I believe that is what passes for laziness. I also feel like that is an excuse. Anyone who wants a thing bad enough should be able to go get it. I have always served as living proof of that. I’ve fought for what I want my entire life. I’ve created the conditions to make it happen. Only now have I arrived at a point where I no longer do that and let defeat seep in like water through the cracks of a door. Still, I cannot quite understand why.