The Battle to Write
How the Argument Begins
The alarm goes of at five, every morning. Weekend, weekday - no matter. It goes off. And every morning I hit snooze, a habit desperate to be broken. Eventually my phone/alarm gives up on me waking up and will just turn itself off (a little trick I've come to hate. It's made me late for work on several occasions). But on those rare mornings it does, I manage to sit up in bed, make my coffee somehow (the bleary vision and reality of the morning makes it seem as if java makes its way into my cup by magic), open my computer and begin to work. Cobwebs will have coated my brain during the short night hours, and caffeine just doesn't seem to have the same puff it once had to blow them all away.
Somewhere in my lust for natural remedies I learned the alternative to coffee, to dust the dust bunnies from my mind. Some mornings I fail to remember them, others, I remember but the harsh scent of mint, eucalyptus and/or tea tree oil is just too much first thing in the morning, and i neglect the simple act of reaching into my cupboard for herbal oils to sniff instead of a mug. Once I had an oil burner - I still do...somewhere in my tidied mess of a room. And in it I would burn the mentioned scents and a slow release of aromatherapy would wrap itself around me and refresh me.
Inevitably I will open my laptop, hit the power button, and log on to my link to the world - that pesky internet.
"Oh no I wont!" I mumble as my fingers itch to go to facebook. The demon named Distraction is knocking at my door, telling me just to check and see if I have any notifications, if someone's birthday has arrived that I forgot (and I do that so often). I go to type in a search engine, yet some how my fingers type an f which comes before an a, leading to a c which completes itself with an e - and before I know it I've somehow ended with a k.com and the blue banner is at the top of the screen and I'm facebooking again. Cursed demon Distraction!
"Fine," I tell the computer. "We can stop here for just a moment, but five minutes only - and that's it!"
An hour later I finally manage to get to my search engine, wondering what it was I just did that lasted a whole hour on facebook. The curser blinks at me, a chipper jumping Good Morning with it's silent question, "What may I help you find today?" and my mind goes blank.
But That's What You Always Say!
The first cup of coffee down and I glance at the clock - only half an hour until I have to leave for work, and I'm not even dressed, the cat hasn't been fed, plants yet to be watered -
I glance back at my dresser. Its face may be stern, but I know inside it is laughing at me. Within it are tops and pants and shorts and skirts and the like. The dresser gives a nudging glance to the closet, which mocks me with it's mirror sliding doors. They both know I don't want to go near them. That would involve choosing, making decisions, making weather predictions and more.
"Why must being a girl involve so much dressing?!" I growl heatedly. The idea of liberating, or even attempting to liberate the clothes desperate to escape the dresser makes me cringe, and I move to the closet, only to find my cat has pulled down most of everything it contains into a nice nest on the floor, upon which he has made himself a nice cat-fur covered bed. Lazily he looks up at me and meows a welcome.
The first thing to remember about any fight is to walk away when you feel explosions about to erupt. I pivot on my heal and decided oral cleaning will come before I tackle the dresser.
I'm Sorry, You Were Right
It's nearing time to go, clothes are on, teeth are brushed and hastily flossed, and there the computer sits, a blank page on its screen, Word opened happily. "What are we going to talk about today?" Word asks. Its like a puppy that doesn't understand why I am leaving, and will still wait eagerly on my desk until I return home. If my computer's cord could wag, it would be doing so hopefully.
"I'm sorry! I have to go," I apologize. "I promise I'll write something when I get back."
There are many mornings I prepare myself in haste. Somehow I get to looking some what presentable and make sure I'm not the foul odor on the bus. I usually manage this at record speeds. But some mornings - some pesky mornings when the fates say, "No no, for realsies, you are going to write today." Those are the mornings I miss my bus, and have to wait an hour until the next one.
One foot painfully in front of the other, I return to my room, Word blinking its cursor excitedly at my reappearance.
"Ok," I say, sitting down at the computer. "You win."
It Has Not Been Laid to Rest
Somehow I write. I write and write and write and some how it comes together to create a story or an article. Books will always be scattered around me by the end of it, my internet browser will have a hundred thousand tabs open, but some how I will have a decent start on something worth sharing, worth continuing.
This is usually the time that my next bus arrives. I begrudgingly leave my computer, wishing desperately that I had internet at my work so that I could go on with my next idea, finish that last chapter - do something that wasn't my job but instead writing.
Alighting the bus I am always armed with a backpack full of blank pages waiting to be scrawled on, books researching my next article, and so many pens I lose decks of cards to them. I miss Word, and in my head I construct how I'm going to quit my job and scratch and kick my way into the professional writing world, so that I need never leave my Word puppy again.
Twelve hours later I return home, exhausted from work and the commute to and from. I wake word, which greats me happily with it's cursor winks, but I can only close the lid to my lap top. The spiders have begun weaving their cob webs again, and I can't see the keys enough to stroke them. It's 8 o' clock and I want more than anything to go to bed.
I glance at the laptop which looks so sad in it's closed state. I open it again, log on to the internet, and attempt my next piece. The Demon returns, and before I know it, the time is reaching out for 11. There's no two ways about it. My computer is possessed by the Demon Distraction and I must find a way to extract the evil of distraction. But for now, It is only time for bed. I'll exorcise it in the morning. One must not disturb the brain spiders while they're working after all, and they are working so hard to blanket my mind.
Lather, rinse, repeat.