A Reminder (for you, and for them, and for me)

 http://www.lauraannegilman.net/a-reminder-for-you-and-for-them-and-for-me/

 

"How do I do this?  How do YOU do this?  How does it get done, this book-writing, storytelling thing?  I keep starting and stopping, getting distracted, getting bored, getting broken.... what's the secret?"

 

The following paragraph has long resided in the sidebar of my Livejournal blog.  Some days (weeks, months, years) it's useful to shake it out and look at it again.

 

You sit down. You tell a story. You do it any damn way it comes out that works consistently for you. You hope people like it. You hope people pay you for it. You do it again. And again. That's all I got. Zen and the Art of Writer Maintenance. You can cheer me on and I can cheer you on, but in the end? In the end it's down to how you get your getting done, done. So get it done.

 

You still need specifics?  Ass in chair (or feet planted on the ground). Fingers on the letters (or wrapped around a pen). Small goals over and over again until you're done. Everything else is personal, and subject to change as the writer changes.  Stop looking at me. Write.

Every now and again the world reminds us we aren't the end all and be all of experience...

 The subject header is fron a story, but the experience is from life:

 

I was talking to a friend while I was reheating last night's leftovers for lunch, and I said, idly, in passing, "I think this needs fish sauce.  Hang on a sec."

 

An my friend, flabbergasted, said "you have fish sauce in your cabinet?"

 

Me: "The fridge, actually.  You don't?" 

 

Note to self: to some otherwise lovely people, fish sauce is weird/exotic/icky.  They're still nice people you can associate with, really.