The best of times, and worst

I'll sit and stare at an empty notebook for several hours, starting and stopping a story over and over again. The flatmates that witness these evening exercises in patience and tenacity grow accustomed to the sounds that emerge - the angry scratch of a pen scribbling over abandoned words, followed shortly thereafter by the flip of the notebook page. For some reason, a clean page seems more condusive to writing something that will stick. I'll use these marred pages later - I'm not quite as wasteful as it sounds - but I'm not one for jumping all over a page while reading a draft.

When I'm fully alert, I doubt my instincts. I'll want to change a word or a phrase a few sentences after I put it on paper and then the flow is lost. I forget the concept of editing later and just getting the thoughts out. A hiccup in the process screws that process over.

Frustrated, I'll ultimately give up for the night, cursing myself all the while for imagining myself a writer. I'll recall snippets of an essay on writing that left me incensed because the author said that if the writing doesn't come easy, don't do it because you're not a writer.

(At these moments, of course, I conveniently forget all of the other quotes on writing out there that state how difficult it is for everyone. This is a self-doubting, self-pitying mood that allows no attempts at commiseration.)

So at this point, I'm angry, tired, frustrated and ready for sleep. I toss my notebook onto the pile of others next to my bed and crawl beneath the covers, turning my body toward the wall and away from the offending notebook. I turn off the lamp and close my eyes.

And lie there. Thinking about what I've been trying to write. Watching little stories play out in my mind and realizing I'm doing the writing without the notebook. I haven't the energy to doubt myself, so the words finally come.

I turn on the lamp, roll over and pick up the notebook. I'll lean on my left elbow and place the notebook on the pillow and start scribbling away. The phrasing is unpolished, and I might scribble out a word or two, but I realize I have to get as much of it down as I can before this bit of weary ambition drains out of me.

It's only when either my hand starts to ache or my eyes start to close that I'll regretfully put the notebook back on the floor, turn off the lamp and again close my eyes. Hoping as I drift to sleep that I'm able to pick back up where I left off.

I know I'll be tired in the morning (and subsequently reset my cell phone alarm clock to play the snippet of "Stretch" every ten minutes for the hour and a half I'd intended for an early-morning run and languid preparation for the day), but I finally feel like I'm accomplishing something. It's working.