Send Help, I'm Nesting
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I think I would write better with authentic Turkish spa towels in the house, don't you?Ahem.
I have become obsessed with buying new bath towels, making sure all the crumbs are cleaned out from the silverware drawer, and finding a painting for the blank wall in the hall. Life holds little meaning or value unless and until each of these things gets done RIGHT NOW.
A friend asked the other day over coffee, "What distracts Dena?"
Uh, nesting. Whenever I'm feeling less than self-confident in my work, I battle the strong, strong urge to organize each and every aspect of my life. Somehow, I seem to believe that a tidy bathroom and freshly purged CD collection will bring about the clarity needed for me to get back to my writing.
The unfortunate thing for those around me (read: Blair) is that I'm a, well... less-than-nice person when I nest. It's frustration. I can't get the dialogue in my scene to sound the way I want it so I channel that anxiety into a migraine over the fact that (sob!) the damn cat hair keeps piling up and the tupperware keeps falling over inside the pantry.
The obvious answer--and the only answer--is to sit my butt in the chair and write. Write bad scenes, crappy dialogue, cliched plots, doesn't matter so long as it's writing. Writing is the only thing that will calm my racing heart when I see a water glass left out that hasn't been put in the dishwasher or fingerprint smudges on the glass door.
Naturally, writing is the last thing I feel like doing. It feels more pressing--and useful--to scour overstock.com for deals on Egyptian cotton bath towels. Surely I would write better scenes if only I weren't forced to use threadbare towels each day and instead started the morning with a nice, fluffy cotton wrap.
Okay, I see your point. Just one more swoop through overstock.com and then I'm going back to writing.
I really want those towels.
Cheers,
Dena
