Wildly Improbable
It’s the longest day of the year, and here I am at my usual professional workstation: on bed. Not in bed (that’s not my profession) (not quite) but lying on top of the covers, a laptop propped on my knees. This is how I’ve always written. It staves off fibromyalgia pain in my lower back, though it invites another, only slightly less crippling fibro-bane: Laptop Neck.
GAH! LAPTOP NECK LOOMING TO STARBOARD! ABORT! ABORT!
Cleansing breath.
Back to my work, which right now consists of staring aggressively at my screen, trying to ignore the birds panting on the birdbath just outside my window. I am highly preoccupied with these birds. It’s a hot day. I should really get them some ice, or fan their nests with my hands. Or do any-fucking-thing other than what I’m trying to do.
You see, for months, two books have been thumping around in my head, each wanting to come out first. I’ve given up trying to prioritize. I’m going to write both at once, in one year. Summer solstice to summer solstice.
This is where I curl into a ball and make high, soft keening sounds for twenty minutes.
high soft keening sound high soft keening sound high soft keening sound high soft keening sound high soft keening sound
You might find it odd that I’m so terrified, since nobody’s grading me, and I’ve been grinding out books my whole adult life. You may think I approach a book with carefree insouciance, smirking at the fears of the less-published.
Ha, I chortle bitterly. Ha ha!
No, I’m with Kurt Vonnegut, who once said, “When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.” Do you think he meant it literally? Maybe it helps to put a crayon in your mouth. Just a second, I’ll be right back.
Okay, that didn’t help at all.
So I guess this blog is the crayon in my mouth. It’s an Accountability Blog, you see. I’m writing it based on a whole other experience. When I was 17, a few weeks into my first Chinese class, I tried to say, “I like jogging,” and somehow accidentally told everyone I was planning to run the Boston Marathon. They looked impressed. They said things in Mandarin, like, “Good! Very good!” which was about all the Chinese they spoke. As for me, I was nowhere near being able to explain my mistake in Mandarin.
So then I felt — and please know I see how titanically dysfunctional this is — that to please my classmates, I had to run the Boston Marathon. And I did. I had no choice. I ran that marathon as a victim of circumstance.
What I’m saying is that it may be possible to use my extreme people-pleasing, instead of merely suffering from it. If promise to keep plodding away at two books, then show up here to log my progress, I’ll get them written. Maybe.
Any which way, this will not be pretty. I am a crumpled wad of anxiety and Laptop Neck right now, and I haven’t even started. There will be low points. There will be strong language. There will be — oh, wow, there’s a downy woodpecker outside. It’s out there panting, beak wide open in the crushing heat. Really, I should do something to help it before I write…
NO! No, goddam it! In twelve months I plan to be lying here, on bed, with two full manuscripts in front of me. I don’t know if I’ll meet this Wildly Improbable Goal. I don’t know how things will go along the way. If you want to ride shotgun, I guess we’ll both find out.
It’s the Summer Solstice, my friends. Praise the great shiny object in the sky, and wish me luck. I’m going in.
