Word After Word

After Pilates, I made myself go to the sealed-over book and work. I used J’s comments–those nice stepping stones–and rewrote and wrote and I was horrified by how much I hate the project and the weakness of the writing but I kept telling myself “it will get better. Just keep going forward.” It was a really not very fun way to spend time. When I found myself emptying the bottom drawer of the vanity in the bathroom, I said, nicely, “Honey, that’s a great idea to completely reorganize the bathroom, but it isn’t quite what we are doing now.  Go back to your room. Reorganize page 147. (It’s a horrible, horrible, particularly dull, seamed page.) Or, skip ahead. Or, feel free to work on the ending. Scoot! up you go! Here’s tea!”

 And back up I went.   “You are wonderful!” I said, as I entered the studio, just to keep the momentum. A lie, but necessary.

And so I worked. I just slogged through. Not pretty, fun, rewarding, entertaining, or producing good work, but I believe this is what I have to do to get this book to the next stage.

Then, at 3 pm, I went to the men’s basketball game. And after one minute, I saw the look on Number Thirty One’s face. He was so totally focused, working so incredibly hard, riding this edge. Every cell in his body, everything focused on blocking their Number Eleven. It was all he had to do. It looked incredibly fun, to be working that hard.

That’s what is missing.

Tomorrow, I’m going to play basketball with my book. I’m going to find a place in it where I can really get back in the game. It needs to be hard. I’m going to have to work up a sweat and give one hundred and ten percent and many, many, many other sports cliches.  All of them. Bring them on. Here we go.

(Our team won today.  Good game.)