To write even when one isn't writing sounds manic and there probably is a manic aspect to it, but mania comes with the territory.
This week, Sunday (June 7th) until yesterday, proved to be a test of will. My older son attended a cycling development camp in Lubbock. Relative to my home in San Antonio, Lubbock sits in that gray zone where it's a bit too close to fly in and a bit too far to drive. So I had to drive him in.
It's a 7-hour trip one way with stops. That wouldn't be so bad if a few days separated the drive up and the drive back but, for mundane reasons related to remaining days, I needed to drive back the next day, Monday, a work day. Camp lasted through the week and pickup was on Friday, another work day. And I decided, in the interest of keeping costs down, I'd drive back the same day.
With two workdays lost, I needed to squeeze five workdays into three. Let's break that down:
Sunday: 7-hour drive- Monday: 7-hour drive
- Tuesday: 13-hour work day starting at 4am so I could make my Tuesday night critique.
- Wednesday: 13-hour work day
- Thursday: 12-hour workday, which leaves me 2 hours in the hole. I'll knock those out today, Saturday.
- Friday: 14 hours of drive time, half of which was spent in close quarters with a teenager who needed to relate his experience, including sharing the dorm with about 500 cheerleaders who were, in his words,"No, dad, you don't understand-" hot.
Can I get a holy shit up in this mutha?
But what does any of this rant have to do with writing? Two things, really.
- You never stop writing, even when you're not actually writing.
Whether or not you have a story in the works. Endless time to one's self is a perfect time to brainstorm ideas. Passing endless miles brings one into contact with innumerable settings, people and situations, any one of which can spark an idea or a character.
- It turns out there really are times you can let yourself off the hook and not write.
I'm a self-proclaimed advocate of writing every day. I've missed a day or two along the way in the last three years and have always kicked myself for having done so. The excuse never seems to justify breaking my promise to myself. But this week proved too daunting. I wrote Sunday and Monday; a 7-hour drive left me enough of my faculties to produce decent work but the remainder of the days sapped every ounce of energy I had. That being the case, I still had my head in the game.
The Factory Effect
After sitting at the computer for 13 hours (which is really a 15-hour commitment with breaks and lunch) one might not have the energy to put fingers to keyboard another moment, but something curious happens during drudging tasks that I like to call the factory effect.
I used to work at the Gibson Guitar factory in Nashville. My responsibilities there never didn't include hour upon hour of mind-drubbing simple, tedious tasks. My mind was basically turned off for eight hours at a time. During that spell in my life, I was performing in a band. I was always writing music, humming to myself, tapping out rhythms, etc. I found that when I got home at the end of the day, all that churning over a tune or rhythm translated into a couple hours of intense focus and creativity. I wrote some of my best pieces after work.
I find this phenomenon to hold true in any artistic endeavor. Waiting rooms, long drives, family obligations, time at work. These can all be used to our advantage. These are times to wind up, to pull the bow string back. When that energy is released, you can run for miles.
