The Want… The Inspiration… The Squandering
“I have always found plans to be useless, but planning, indispensible.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower
How many times have I planned and sculpted my morning to write. I wake at dawn, put on a pot of coffee before my wife and kids wake up, grab my laptop and head out to the pergola, get situated, like a bird feathering its nest - sit down open my laptop, boot it up, then make my first mistake. I check my email. But it doesn’t stop there. Then it’s on to the social media posts. “Oh look! Someone liked my pic of me playing at a club! Wow, my video of me playing guitar got 550 views (that’s a whole lot for me). The next thing I know, an hour has past and my coffee is now cold.
Now the sun is full up. The neighborhood begins to stir. Then the first lawn mower of the morning fires up. So much for my quiet and focused morning to let inspiration flow through my fingers to produce the next great masterpiece. This was the morning it would happen, I could feel it! Then I beat myself up for the next hour. I regroup and head to my office nook and make myself comfortable. Here comes Dot - the overly fluffy cat. I can’t ignore her. She’s just too darn cute! I’m sure you all couldn’t either, unless you’re allergic.
Dot soon walks off to to exercise her God-given instinct of hunting - for the chow bowl, that is. Now it’s really time to write now that all of the distractions and conjured excuses have been addressed. Once more I open my laptop and click on my document to start chapter 28 of my fisrt draft (see I have been able to write here and there). I want to start this chapter out with something hard-hitting. I just know the inspiration will come to me. Take a deep breath, exhale… Now fingers are placed on the keyboard to produce some lightening!
My eager attempt turns into plodding through poor word choices and clunky phrases. Then a decent sentence (in my opinion) manifests. Then another! True, no lightening but a decent thundering of effort is happening. Finally, I get a few pages pounded out. Not the best I’ve ever done, by far, but it’ll do - at least for now. After all writing is revision. I used to think of the time I wasted on those particular mornings. Looking back I realized that those are still productive times. I saw another morning bloom. My kitty wanted some loving and time to say hello. I was getting gifts and experiences for future writing! Its’s true to never give up, but also enjoy life’s experiences in the process. Then write about them!
