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People ask me, how do I write on days when I don’t want to write? What do I do when the muse is not only not whispering in my ear, but it feels like she’s taken a vacation without me? Well, below is part of that answer. I will hit cap lock and give myself permission to complain. To state why I can’t possibly work today. Somewhere in the middle I realized it might be a blog, of some kind, but I decided to let you guys see what I wrote to just get started for the day. I have resisted the urge to edit it. Enjoy my version of unstopping the creative clog.
I CAN’T DO THIS. I CAN’T. SASQUATCH PEED ON MY NEW CHAIR. THE INCENSE IS GETTING IN MY EYES. PHOUKA AND SAS WON’T SETTLE DOWN AND FIND A BED. PHOUKA IS BLIND SO IT’S NOT HER FAULT, BUT SHE’S KNOCKED SOME STUFF OFF. FOR SUCH A LITTLE DOG SHE IS STRONG, AND DETERMINED. THE NEW NICKNAME SINCE SHE WENT BLIND IS THE PHOUKA-DOZER, BECAUSE IF SHE HITS YOU FULL ON IN THE SHINNS YOU KNOW YOU’VE BEEN HIT. SHE’S ALMOST BROUGHT SOME OF US DOWN. She’s learned that when we yell, careful, that she simply stops and either waits for us to come get her, or she goes slower ahead and tries to figure out what the hazard is. I’ve personally seen her run full into a tree, the kitchen cabinet, the living room coffee table, and a chair. She is the Phouka-Dozer.
Okay, I feel a little better. The mess Sas made is cleaned up. Phouka has finally decided her new hobby is licking the leg of my chair, but at least she’s in one place. I keep trying to get Sas to lead her to a bed and settle, but a seeing-eye-pug he is not. She won’t stay if I lead her to a bed, because I won’t lay down on the bed with her, and Phouka is all about the company.
Of course, now I’m out of tea, but if I get up she’ll try to follow, and if she’d follow me back and forth, that would be great, but she gets distracted. Sas is as bad, and because he peed on the new chair, I don’t exactly trust him in the main part of the office by himself. Sigh.
I love my dogs, I love my dogs, I love my dogs. But there are days when I think three is plenty. Having written that, I’d still take Jimmy back in a heartbeat, if he wasn’t in pain. It was his level of discomfort that began to make his last days so hard. Before that he was our old man. Our peeing on the furniture, teaching the other boys bad habits, old man. I can still picture him not long after we got him, chasing a rabbit in the yard. His ears flying out behind him, his body stretching out, moving. He almost got that rabbit. We got him when he was ten, estimate by the vet. He must have been a real pistol when he was young.
Phouka is settled in at my feet with her head on the leg of my chair. I think she’s finally asleep. Sas and Pip are in different beds, resting, if not asleep. Now, if I could just figure out how to get tea without disturbing everyone, it would be nearly perfect.
Okay, this is me again, and not the unstopping of the creative clog. After I wrote the above I did three pages on the new Merry book.
Some days the free form writing is nothing but a list of why I can’t write, but sometimes, like today, it’s a rough blog, or a thought, or the beginnings of an essay, or some stray thought caught and put on paper when I’m trying to catch a very specific thought that eludes me. Anyway, hope this helps any of you would-be writers to find your own way to prime your pumps, and get the clog out of the way so the muse can whisper sweet somethings in your ear. I mean, who really wants sweet nothings whispered in your ear?