March 11, 2002

[General] Once more, into the breech.

Well, you can't say that I didn't warn you.

I have no discipline. I have never had any discipline. If I had discipline, I would have gotten A’s in college rather than B’s. If I had discipline, the $2000 treadmill in the basement wouldn’t be gathering quite so much dust. If I had discipline, I wouldn’t have 17 loads of undone laundry. My closet would be neat and organized. My videotapes would have labels. My dishes would be done more often than the night before--no, make that the morning of the housekeeper’s visit.

And, if I had discipline, I would write every day.

I started this project to see if I could do it, if I could write every day. I wanted to see if I had the chops, if I had the discipline. I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I could do this, I could one day write that book that I always thought I’d write someday. Someday when I had the discipline.

So here I am, feeling guilty for not writing. Every day, I think that I am going to write something. I even have specific things to write about. I had a fabulous weekend a couple of weeks ago. Just about perfect, as weekends go. I thought I would write about that. I didn’t. I might do that tomorrow, though, because as weekends go, it was pretty spectacular.

Then I thought that I would write about my growing dissatisfaction with my job, or about my shiny new refrigerator, bought in protest of my company’s decision to raise prices on all the vending products. Or about how my shiny new refrigerator made all the sodas so cold that they exploded all over the inside and I had to clean it out squatted on the floor of my cubicle in a skirt. I mean, that could be a good story, right?

But, in the end, I wrote none of it. Instead, I went out and bought a new laptop and a bunch of wireless networking gear thinking that I would write, if I didn’t have to do it at my desk. My desk, you see, is very uncomfortable. It’s always hot in the office and I hate my chair and the cats aren’t allowed in because they are very fuzzy and John thinks that the hair is really bad for the equipment. So the whole time I am sitting at my desk, trying to work, Owen sits in the hall outside the office and cries. I am a sucker for my boy and when he cries, it just breaks my heart. So…

So, I bought the laptop and the wireless networking equipment. That first night, I drifted off to sleep with visions of the novel that I want so desperately to be good enough to write dancing in my head. I had the equipment--how could I not be able to write the book?

Except that I can’t. Not yet. But maybe I will be able to someday. In the meantime, maybe I will try to keep plugging away here. Even if it’s not every day. The laptop will help, I think. It may not provide discipline, but it will provide more opportunities to write. I am writing this, for example, in the family room, listening to a repeat of “Good Eats”. I am sitting in a comfy chair and the cats are within petting distance. No one is crying. Combined, these have to be good things.

Posted by Lori at March 11, 2002 3:46 PM