So it’s Saturday afternoon and I planned to spend the day writing today – making revisions on Chapter 1 and finishing Chapter 2 of Ransome’s Honor and getting started on final revisions of Happy Endings, Inc. for school. Instead, I’ve watched a couple of movies (Belles on their Toes with Jeanne Crain and Myrna Loy, and Drumline on TBS).

Here’s the weird thing – I was awake for a couple of hours after going to bed last night thinking through how to get beyond the problem of introducing a minor character in my first chapter who doesn’t show up again in the story. I have the hook line (first line) all worked out in my head. I’ve even figured out how to get around the believability problem of the “mistaken identity” of my hero that the plot hinges on.

So why don’t I want to sit down and write it?

This is something that came up in one of my classes at school the first week of January as we discussed the book On Writer’s Block by Victoria Nelson. It’s not really a true writing block, but the writer portion of myself giving in to two emotions: laziness and fear. Laziness because I know that if I sit down at the computer and start it, it’s going to be hard work and will take up a lot of time (but truly, what else important do I have to do?). And fear that even though I have it all worked out in my head, what comes out on the page may not live up to my imagination.

Where I disagree with Ms. Nelson’s conclusion in her book that if the “writing self” (or inner child which is the metaphor she chose) doesn’t want to write, I should give in to that and not force it. But I know that if I give into the “I don’t want to write” voice in my head, I’ll never get around to it. Just like a child who loves music but doesn’t want to practice on the piano, I must force myself to sit down and put fingers to keyboard and work at it until it’s the best I can make it.

Of course, it’ll have to wait until I get back from dinner and a movie with friends… Oh, and I have to make sure I go to bed early enough to be well rested for church tomorrow… then there’s lunch out after church… and the organ concert at church at 4:00…