a running metaphor

here is a question: how are different types of runners like different types of writers?

[gotta do some stuff now, but I will try to get back to this thought :) ...]

starting rituals

We were talking about starting rituals in the writing class this week, so I thought I could take a few minutes to describe my starting rituals today.

Yeah, I am getting up early on a Sunday morning to try and add some more pages to the dissertation revisions—sounds pretty lame and hopeless, right? [the current time is 5:50—do you remember when you would call on the telephone to find the correct time? Imagine that recorded voice—it is how I feel :) .] Frankly, the ideas that I had been working on were rattling around in my head and they were really not gonna let get a little more sleep anyway, so I am up and at the computer.


But the point of this post is how I got from being in bed to being at the computer and typing on this, and to point out that that can take more time than you might think. I want to give you a snapshot of how all the things in life that each of us “has got to do” serve as sort of a mental and physical buffer and sometimes barrier between your “real life” and your “writing life.” it probably took five minutes of walking around before the blood started flowing and I felt really awake. Anyone else like that—you really like to be asleep and really dread getting up? Sadly, today was a fairly fast wake up, ‘cause I had been thinking about the writing I had left half finished yesterday. In other words, the alarm did not wake me up from a deep sleep, but my brain woke me up because it was already working on the writing.


The first “had to do” were putting away the washed and now dried dishes from last night, and then the coffee had to be made. I can’t write without a cup of coffee close by. Funny thing I noticed yesterday is that after I get started, the coffee usually goes cold. That’s probably part of the reason I don’t mind reheated coffee—I have had my share of microwaved coffee :) . Of course making coffee is a multistep process: set up the pot and filter cage (thank goodness they were washed today), get a filter, get out beans, grind ‘em, dump ‘em in, fill the tank with filtered water (that was ready too), add the vanilla extract, switch it on, get out the milk, heat that up, put the coffee, filters, vanilla, milk, etc back where they came from, filter more water, sugar in the milk, still waiting for the coffee to finish. While waiting I needed to set up a work desk. One nice thing about the physical space of the U.S. is that a house/apartment with enough space to have a separate office is not completely unaffordable (well, in most of the U.S.). In Korea, at least for now on this salary, that is not the case, so my “office” regularly moves to some other room that other people are not using. Which generally means bedroom in the day, and kitchen in the late night and early morning [yeah, I am in the kitchen right now]. Coffee still not done, and the house feels a little cold. I get a sweater and check for drafts. Am I the only one who does this? With all the sliding doors to the veranda/balcony spaces, it seems like one or more are always cracked open. Checking those I notice that the laundry has not completely dried on the balcony space. Makes sense—‘cause it was damp outside all day long yesterday. So the laundry gets moved into the room with the dehumidifier and the water dumped out of that machine before it gets reset -- the house rates over 70% humidity.


The coffee is done. I sit down to write, and write this instead of what I really need to finish. It is 6:35 let's start, OK?