"Talking" with my friend Conor this morning about doing chores vs. writing. His take is a good one, there will always be something to clean. Especially for someone like me who can be a bit, well much, about it. Basically don't put off the writing for the time when everything else is done or the writing doesn't get done.
Which is completely true. Every writer I know procrastinates. Even when you know you NEED to write. Not just because writing is like any other muscle, if you don't use it it gets flabby. You have to be in the practice of writing to write more. And you also need to keep those gears greased so the ideas keep coming. Writers write. You have to. There is no getting around it.
Yet it's also not true for me in another way. Part of my process is cleaning. Or taking a walk, or taking a drive, or...well anything that I can do with the active part of my brain that doesn't need the deep thinking part. (Don't be too scared, I don't actually switch off my thinking brain when I'm driving) I know a lot of people who write who are runners. Same thing. It's a thing that you can do with your body that sort of distracts the busy thinker part of your brain and lets the deeper thinker out. Like topline stuff fades away. Cleaning does that for me. I joke about cleaning fumes making good fiction stories, but it's really that repetitive motion and brain flip off.
It's almost a meditation that encourages Monkey Brain. Instead of acknowledging the myriad of fleeting thoughts and inviting them to move along I chase them. Where is this idea going? What might this become? Is this a thing? What if? What else? Why not? All the while the tub is getting scrubbed and the bubbles are giving me new ideas.
For instance today as I was cleaning the spare bathroom I was thinking about the visit with C and how when he comes to see us I remember I'm old. I mean, I'm 50 and that's nifty and all that, but it's still old in its own way. And it's not just that he's an adult so that makes me feel old. It's the number of times we are having a conversation and he mentions something that I have never heard of; "What is that?" or "I don't know what that even means" are repeated a lot during his visits. Now, I'm lucky enough (?) that he has been smarter than I am since he was very young so I'm actually pretty used to saying "I don't know" to him but now it makes me feel old. There are things that are happening out in the world that I have never even heard of because it's not my demographic.
I don't even mind it that much. But it's a good reminder that I'm getting older. Things that "these kids today"are doing are things that people younger than my son are doing. He's the grownup generation. There is a whole other named generation coming up behind him. Pretty soon we will stop blaming millennials for everything and start blaming the generation currently known as Z. I'm just not sure I'm ready for that. I mean I have a whole host of millennials are killing (fill in the blank) jokes right now and Gen Z just doesn't move me comedically.
And forget about tech things. I just don't even know what is going on there anymore. But to be fair, I never really have been a big tech person. I mean I just printed out a decade of blogs because it made me uncomfortable not to have a physical copy of them somewhere. Brent has drug me along from the 20th to the 21st century and I've resisted every step of the way. I'm not big on change is what I'm saying. Once I get in to it, I like it, usually, but it takes me awhile. C is a programmer and video game designer. Brent works for Intel. I'm pretty much stuck moving along with the flow. Even though they both roll their eyes at my antiquated ways. "I don't even know what that is."
Today as I cleaned I listened to the repairs being done on my house and scrubbed the shower trying to figure out why in the year since we got the remodeling done I still haven't figured out how to clean the walk in shower without getting soaked and is there a story there someplace about someone who needs watered like a plant? And is he tearing down the house or building it back up? Which is it really? I mean it's both, right? To build he has to destroy. Which is really a great story premise and also a life lesson. You can't keep building a new life on a cracked foundation, eventually you just have to take a deep breath and tear it all down to get that stability. Or maybe not, I mean I guess you could just keep trussing it up and building around it. Like a wonky tower. Maybe that's where the witches live. In the wonky tower. Wait, what witches? When did the witches come in?
And that's why I clean first before I write. There is a lot up there to work through. Hopefully it will become something cool. I mean, I need to write a fiction piece this week or I will already be behind for the year.
The Witches in the Wonky Tower...
Yeah, probably not.
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