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Monday, January 9

Magic time...

I’ve had such a fun week! My book, ONE MORE SUMMER, is out. The reviews are good. I’ve blogged until whatever part of my brain I use for that is mush. New to Twitter, I’ve twitted myself silly—and felt like a twit in the process—and spent way too much time on Facebook. I have—let’s see if I can even forgive myself for admitting this—Googled my name more times in the past seven days than I have in the past seven years. It has been, I’ll say again, fun. Lots of it.

And now it’s time to go back to work. To reading CPs’ chapters and to writing my own. To stop talking about the grandkids’ quilts and get busy sewing on them. An old cyber friend from Kensington Precious Gems days, Joan Reeves, wrote on her own blog this week http://slingwords.blogspot.com/about the Myth of the Muse. What she says—very well, I might add—boils down to if you sit and wait for it, it’s not going to happen.

Now, I admit, since I retired, I’ve gotten lazy about writing. I only do it when I want to. Usually. But sometimes—now being one of those—I just have to sit in the chair and create because I truly believe that old adage that admonishes you to use it or lose it.

Joan said, “Quit waiting for the Muse. If you have a great idea, then the Muse has moved on. The rest is up to you. Discipline and consistency are the cornerstones of writing success. That's where the real magic lies--in you.”

Jack Lemmon used to say, just before he stepped in front of the camera, “It’s magic time.” In a decades-long career, he always knew where the magic was. And aren’t we the lucky ones? Even though we sometimes have to dig for it, we know where it is, too.

I so agree, Liz! I think of writer's block more as an excuse than an actual block...and I think the more we write - even when we don't want to - the better our writing gets. Of course its easy to say it and sound all holier-than-thou...actually butt-in-chairing it? Sometimes very difficult!