The Mocking Taunt of the Blinking Cursor

Last week I spent three hours staring at a blank screen waiting for writing inspiration. Nothing. Damn cursor kept mocking me. “Having trouble, Sher? Can’t come up with a worthy topic to write about, Sher? Too bad.” Too frustrated to write, I succumbed to the lure of email and social media and work “to do’s” pushing at the edges of my brain and my screen.

The next day, a friend sent an unprompted email congratulating me on my previous blog posts and expressing interest in seeing the next one, I spilled the truth to her. “I didn’t write anything this week. I couldn’t think of what to write about and then I got distracted and couldn’t get my focus back.” I was so mad at myself. If you can’t keep a promise to yourself, who can you keep a promise to? Then she emailed back, “Write about just that... making space for you, for your writing, for prioritizing you ...and how that is so important in a world of overload”. So grateful for smart friends.

Right.

Write.

Did I think this would be easy? Did I think I would simply commit to writing every week and the insightful pearls of wisdom would move through my fingers to the screen in one delicious flowing river of awesomeness?

Ok, yeah…maybe I did think that.

I tend to be someone who just decides and does without a whole lot of consideration to how difficult it might be or the roadblocks that might throttle my momentum. It’s too easy to get stopped in our goals. Better to plow ahead and deal with the roadblocks when (and if) they arrive.

To illustrate, let me share the story of the purple shelves.

Many years ago, when I was first married, my husband and I decided to put shelves in our den. Off to IKEA we went, emerging less than an hour later with the materials to build “IVAR”, a plain wood shelving unit. I remember telling my husband I wanted to paint them purple and him smiling and nodding at me.

“Purple?”

“Yeah,” I said, “The room needs color. It will look great. Bold. Creative.”

He didn’t look sold on the idea. But he didn’t say “no way” either.

Then we went to sleep.

The next morning I got up at dawn and started painting the shelves. Purple. Deep, intense, bold, creative purple. (Note: The photo above is not of our actual shelves. But, you get the idea.) By the time he awoke, the shelves were painted and drying. He expressed surprise that I had finished painting them already, but no comment about the color. Once they dried, we moved them into place, filled them with books and assorted bookshelf stuff, and stood back to assess the view.

“I like it”, I said.

I think he said something intensely supportive like “ok”.

Three days went by ‘til I walked in the room and thought “Purple? What the hell was I thinking?”

That weekend, I took everything out of the shelves and repainted them black.

Jump in first. Deal with roadblocks later. (Is it any wonder why I married this man?)

That’s kind of what happened with this writing project. I just decided to write. I’ve spent too many years reading others writing or grading others writing or inspiring others writing-- and while I love doing all of those things, I’ve too infrequently focused on my own writing. When I did write (and I have written a couple of books and articles and reports), the topics were often not of my choosing, or at least not my first choice.

This would be different.

This would be like my childhood journal; the one in which I bared my soul about twelve year old first-kiss embarrassments, thirteen year old heartache from my grandmother’s death, lost pets, lost virginity, found loves and found passions. This writing would be about finding writing passion in my adult voice.

No wonder that blinking cursor was raising my anxiety level! Each week I’ve been trying to push myself to speak more honestly, with clearer opinions, and greater skill. No pressure, right?

But I think my avoidance of writing last week was a turning point. And I hope there will be many others. (Turning points…not avoidance.)

Last week’s turning point taught me to recognize the distractions and recognize that’s all they are. I can put them aside and be distracted later. The writing has to be non-negotiable. The writing has to come first.

I’m also starting to think differently about what to write about. There’s fodder in those random thoughts and opinions that float through my mind every day. I shall now officially refer to that as the “Nora Ephron influence”. Evidently, one of her favorite responses to life’s ups and downs was “everything is copy”. I learned that snappy comeback a few days ago from her son in a radio interview promoting his new documentary about his mom titled, yep, Everything is Copy. In their family, this oft-repeated quip meant that “anything and everything that happens to you is fair game to write about”. To me, it speaks to a self-awareness about what makes a good story. And then it speaks to a willingness, maybe even an imperative, a need, to share the story with others.

And that, my friends, concludes today’s story of the time I faced down the blinking cursor.