Hate that feeling. Kinda.

Instead of doing the things that need to get done, I do the dishes. The laundry. Dust. Scrub the baseboards. Write to my second cousin twice removed whom I haven’t spoken to since I was eight.

Why?

Fear. Resistance.

If I do the things I have to do, I step into the unknown. And the unknown can be scary.

All the things I need to do are writing related and the outcome of my doing these things might just be wonderful. Like, dream-fulfilling awesomeness with a bow and a box of chocolates.

One thing I’m learning about myself in this writing journey is that sometimes I’m far too comfy living in the in-between. Dwelling in the possibility (to twist a favorite quote by Emily Dickinson). Right now I’m in a solid state of MAYBE. To take the next step forward will lead me either in the direction of YES or NO. MAYBE is ripe with possibility. I could stay in MAYBE forever, living in the tension of this piano hanging above. But, let’s be honest: staying in MAYBE is just NO in disguise.

So I enlisted some help in the form of a book. Do the Work, the follow-up to Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art.

You need to read The War of Art. And then, a couple of months after you’ve read it and your rocket boosters begin to sputter, read Do the Work.

Whereas The War of Art explains the battle you’re in any time you set out to accomplish something that will better yourself and/or the world, Do the Work gives you a swift kick in the pants. Tells you to get off your butt and, well, do the work.

This book exposes all of your excuses and leaves you with a lighted path toward your destination. It tells you how to get started, how to get finished and how to get your project out the door.

I need this book right now. That piano is looming over me. I’ve got people waiting on me. Heck, I’m waiting on me.

The dishes are done. The laundry, too. All my excuses are stupid obstacles I’ve put in front of myself to keep me from doing what I need to get done. I need to give fear the finger and get on with this show.

Now, too, this blog post is done. And I have nothing left to do, but…

Do the work.

After dinner, Char wheeled into her room, flopped on her bed, and messaged Eddie:

Hey

Hey, what’s up?

no legs tomorrow

what? why?

dunno. Dad filed a grievance.

SHIT

WHAT????

I did that once too. When we found out Cleo was pregnant.

Oh my god. Oh my god Eddie what am i going to do????

I can’t believe he did that he should have known better argh wtf do you want me to come over

no. You know my dad’s always had his head in the clouds. Just tell me where it is. You know what.

7th Street and Collins. We can come with you.

Not until you’re ready

are you ready?

Char held down the delete button, watched it eat everything. She spent the rest of the evening patiently repairing her wheel. At ten o clock, her dad paused in the doorway.

“Lights out, honey.”

“I know. Five minutes.”

He pressed his palms against the rims of his chair, wheedled back and forth. “Listen. I was thinking. I’ve got tomorrow off, why don’t we make a day of it?”

“A Leg Day, Dad?” She hated herself for saying it, but out it came.

Dad flinched, but soldiered on. “We can go to the zoo, I know you’ve been wanting to see the thylacines. And then maybe one of those monster movie immersives? I hear Riders is pretty good.”

“Dad, you hate those things.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, I just thought it would be good to get out of the house. I understand if you don’t want to hang with your old man.”

Char bit her lip. “No, it sounds cool. Just do me one favor, okay? Let me sleep in.”

“Done and done, kiddo. Goodnight.”

She leaned over and turned out the light. Sat in the dark. Listened to the tap run as Dad brushed his teeth. The creak of the floorboards in his bedroom as he rolled over them. The ebb and flow of his snore. When Mom was alive, she used to spend half her nights on the couch, complaining with bitter love that she’d married a chainsaw. But for Char, Dad’s snore was like crickets, or the wind in the beech trees, his somnolent growl softened into a lullaby by all the walls between them.

Mom. Mom, and Cleo’s baby. She cried then, stuffing her fingers into her mouth so she wouldn’t make a sound. Then, her rim replaced and wheels greased, she rolled out into the street, and downtown, to 7th and Collins.

Toughs hovered on every corner, accompanied by ladies wearing amounts of makeup inversely proportional to amounts of clothing. They watched her roll by like vultures tracking a baby gazelle. LIVE SHOW XXX The neon lights gleamed as she rolled in.

“Give me the Mullins,” she said to the waifish girl behind the counter, whose cobalt-blue eyeliner winged all the way to her hairline.

“You sure, doll? Once you’re off the grid, you’re one of us.”

“I know.” She took the paperwork the waif pushed at her. “What’s this.”

“Affidavit. In case you’re caught.”

Char signed. The bell over the door jangled behind her.

“What,” said the waif, “Did you bring your whole family?”

“Eddie,” Char turned. “Dad? Dad, I’m sorry, it’s too late.“

“Sweetie, it was always too late.” Dad nodded up at the waif. “Give me the Mullins.”

“You guys want tourists, kittens, oakhearts, or bladerunners?”

“Baby, we were born to run,” said Dad.

“Is he always so cheesy?” the waif asked, passing Char two pairs of black, titanium legs, curved like halos, like scythes waiting to reap.

“Yeah,” Char said, feeling tears spark behind her eyes. “Totally.”

Before we get to today’s prompts, here’s a quick recap of the rules.

1. Choose one of the prompts below.
2. On your blog, write a 500-word story or scene based on the prompt.
3. Post a teaser to your story in the comments below with a link to where we can read the rest.

Ready to write?

Here are today’s prompts:

1. Write a sleepless night. Dismiss your initial ideas and gravitate toward the unexpected.

…or…

2. Write a story that begins: “In an ideal world, [NAME] would [ACTION]. This isn’t an ideal world.”

Have fun!

Leg Day, Part 2

Char’s hands fell away from the wheels of her chair. “Say that again?”

Her father gave up trying to smile and his mouth turned to a straight line across his face. “There’s been a glitch. In the system.” He wheeled his chair forward. Char inched hers back. “Something about the release records.”

“But nothing’s changed.”

“I know.”

“We haven’t moved. Our information should be the same as last—”

“I know.” He leaned forward, tried to touch her arm. “I told them—”

She flinched away. The smell of bacon sat like rust on her tongue. “So, what does this mean?”

“It means your number got skipped. Your legs. Your legs went to another kid.”

Char gasped and her father spoke quickly to help cover her hurt. ”I put in a formal grievance. And I’ve petitioned for two leg days next year.”

“What?!” Char lurched her broken chair toward the door and covered her mouth with her hand. Wait another year? This couldn’t be happening. She was going to run tomorrow. Climb. Dance.

“Your wheel,” her father said. “It’s broken.”

“So what.” Char’s jaw ached, her teeth grinding. What would she say when the others asked? What would they say when they saw her without legs on Leg Day, stuck in her damned chair?

Char banged her fist against the wall, hard. Twice. She wondered who the stupid, jerk-face kid was that would get her legs. Undeserving. Having legs when it wasn’t their day.

“It’s times like these we have to remember to be grateful,” her father said. Char closed her eyes and tried to not listen. “At least you have Leg Day. Think of the Faceless. You could be hooked up to tubes your whole life. Blind. Deaf.”

She ignored how his words tugged at her gut. Looked instead at the foot rails of her chair. Imagined bones wrapped in sinew and muscle, strong enough to take her away. Stronger than mechanics and synthetic skin. She’d run farther, faster. Faster than the decay of time. She’d out run every disappointment of life.

But the foot rails sat empty.

“What about Cleo and Eddie?”

“Oh.” Her father coughed. “There were no glitches with their records. As far as I know.”

There was no stopping her tears then. “It’s not fair.”

“No. It isn’t.” He wheeled himself back toward the kitchen. ”Come eat dinner, honey. I made it special. You’ll feel better. Then we’ll fix that wheel.”

Her eyes watched him move out of sight, but her mind saw only Cleo and Eddie dancing. Their feet touching the grass. The sun on their shining faces. And her, in the house, suffering After Day on Leg Day. The thought alone caved a whole through her chest empty enough to swallow the world. There was no way she’d be able to bear it.

Unless.

To be continued…

Leg Day

For the third time that day Char got the wheel of her chair stuck in a divot. The third time, and telling from the wrenching crunch, a bent rim. She could look past it though. Look past the ill luck, excessive stares and nervous jitters. She could look past all of it because tomorrow she got her legs.

The closer she got to the day, the more she couldn’t focus on anything else. It was the same every year.

Char looked around the courtyard. Not for help, but to check for witnesses. Not much is more embarrassing. Sure, the kids of the town get stuck and break wheels all the time. The adults, not so much. This will be her eighteenth Leg Day. She shouldn’t be breaking any more wheels.

Rocking side to side, she was able to roll herself out of the divot and continued home. Every few feet her chair lurched to the right. The wheel was definitely bent, but she’d be able to make it home and swap the wheel before her dad would even notice.

Really she knew better than to cross the courtyard, but she was in a hurry to get home. The sooner to sleep, the quicker tomorrow would be here. Char quickly forgot her lurching chair and went on creating her mental list of things she’d do once she got her legs.

When she was younger, and Leg Day came, she ran. She ran until her breath struggled to catch up. She ran until she saw stars. She ran until she puked. She ran up and down the wheel ramps, but mostly she ran through the grass, up the hills, and every place her wheels couldn’t take her.

Char still planned to devote part of her day to running. Running and more. Her dad used to love to climb. Trees, mountains, walls, really anything vertical, so he claimed.

She thought about Cleo and Eddie. They had the same Leg Day and every year they danced. Char didn’t know if it was good, but they smiled, laughed and loved as they spun, hopped and held each other close. So it must have been good. If Char shared her Leg Day. She would chase and be chased, though she never wanted to be caught.

Eventually the running would stop. It was far too easy to tell the homes of Day Afters. They were always too quiet. Quiet unless they had children. It took years for them to get use to the Day After. One year Char thought that if she kept running, run right through the night, she could have her legs for another day. It took her father three hours to get to her amongst the trees where her legs became lifeless and dead to the touch. Char didn’t like to think about that day. There would be plenty of time during her own Day After.

She rolled through the front door, and hurried to the mom’s old room where they kept spare chair parts.

“Charlotte? Is that you?”

She didn’t expect her dad to be home. Her hopes for covering up her bent wheel sank, almost bringing down her mood. Almost.

“What’re you doing home?” She turned to find her dad wheeling in from the kitchen. A waft of bacon followed him.

“Is that–”

“Breakfast for dinner? I know it’s your favorite.”

“Yes!” Char did a little victory wiggle in her chair. “I wasn’t expecting anything until tomorrow.”

The smile on his face faltered. He tried to master it back, but it only looked forced and perhaps painful.

“Char. We need to talk about your Leg Day.”

Come back Wednesday for Part II of Leg Day…

Fresh Eyes

At one time or another you’ve heard someone suggest this. I’ve heard it and suggested it. The scenarios differ — You’ve just completed your first draft; A scene has you stumped; You can’t seem to figure out what a character is doing or why; the story has lost momentum. Then when you reach out for help you get this response (in some form or another):

“Put it down for a while. Then come back to it with fresh eyes.”

This type of advice should only be given out along with explicit instructions. A doctor would go around writing prescriptions without instructions. If that wasn’t enough, the pharmacist also  has to tell you how to take it when you pick it up. I consider this piece of advice as a prescription. If you abuse it, you risk flat-lining your entire work.

So how do you keep it from doing harm, you ask? First off, let’s split into two groups. Unfinished works and finished works.

When you get this advice for solving a problem that’s keeping you from finishing your story, it often time means you’re too close to the situation. Maybe you can’t see the novel for the characters. You can get so focused on a single character, setting or event that you can forget what story you set out to tell. Then on the flip side, you could be so engrossed in the big plot or theme that you forget that each character has their own life to be fleshed out on the page. In this case, “fresh eyes” could mean jumping to a different part of the story or revert to an outline (I just saw all the pantsers out there clench). Working other parts of the story can solve the whatever roadblock you’re currently facing.

As for the lucky ones who are dealing with a finished manuscript, fresh eyes is usually meant as, “Take a break. Relax. Drink some wine. In a few days, weeks or months you can pick up the finished draft and work on revisions. That way you can view it somewhat anew.”

I’ve seen more stories die from this mentality. Sure a break seems just. A celebratory glass of wine is a great way to cap off the big THE END you just typed. But putting off edits and revisions for more than a day can be a big mistake.

Let’s be real. If you wrote the story chronologically (most do), that first chapter was printed and dried months and months ago. Even if you are a NaNoWriMo winner, you’re still thirty days from your first words. I’m sure your eyes will be plenty “fresh” to start again. Also, with the ending so fresh in your mind, the beginning chapters should be easier to tweak knowing your end game (again, talking to you pantsers out there).

Either way, finished or unfinished, if you just can’t stand the thought of diving back in right away, do yourself a favor and start something else. Immediately. Even one day away from writing, is one more day to create excuses to not go back the next.

Here’s what to do:

1. Write 500 words based on one of the two prompts below.
2. Post it to your blog.
3. Give us a small taste in the comments below along with a link to the full text.

As always, feel free to change the name and sex of the characters as you see fit. After all, it’s your story.:

1. Finish this opener: Only one left. The first two were wasted.

2. Flashback Challenge: Write 500 words where the last half is a flashback. The first half should stand on its own, but have the flashback change the way the reader sees the first half.

My first real foray in writing was in 2004. I jumped in with both feet by participating in the 3-Day Novel Contest, an adrenaline filled writing fest in which writers try to write an entire novel between Friday midnight and Monday midnight over Labor Day weekend. It’s crazy. I loved it. I finished my novel by deadline, turned it in and…won third place.

I was shocked. Thrilled. I took it as affirmation that I was meant to be a writer.

Knowing that the novel I’d written wasn’t first place material (yet), I asked an acquaintance in my book club to read it and give me comments. I didn’t have the network of writers I have now, obviously. But this woman was very well read and worked in communications. I felt confident she’d give decent feedback.

Imagine how I felt then, after the high of placing third in the 3-Day, when I read the note — the only note — she’d written on the manuscript. In essence, it suggested I use my energies elsewhere.

Any enthusiasm I’d had for the story fizzled away. I put the novel away and didn’t look at it again for years.

Only recently have I realized how much stock I put in her opinion, and really for no good reason. And only recently have I thought about that novel and seen that, while it still needs work, it’s something I shouldn’t have given up on. That I won’t give up on.

The worst writing advice I was ever given was to not pursue writing. I am SO glad I didn’t heed that advice. That I trusted my gut and didn’t give up on my dream.

If I may be so bold as to offer you advice now… Always scrutinize the advice you’re given. Regardless if it comes from someone you trust, always trust your gut and your passion for your dreams more.

Halfway through the semester, I managed to scrape together a vignette about autumn, something about a trombone sitting abandoned in the back of a kid’s closet. It was maybe 500 words.

She gave me full marks and praised it to the heavens, and then became even more bitter and aggressive with me when I was unable to turn in anything else that did not involve Weirdness.

Every time I handed her an assignment, the question flickered in her eyes: Why are you wasting your time writing this juvenilia, when we both know I will mark you down?

But I couldn’t stop doing it; not even for the sake of my lackluster GPA could I scrape together some slice-of-life literary shorts to please this strange and unhappy woman, who seemed genuinely disturbed by my inability to harrow to “the truth” in my fiction. And there was a very simple reason for this:

Because she was trying to squelch me. To make me into something I wasn’t, and never will be. And if that’s not bad writing advice, I don’t know what is.The end result was that I was galvanized by her prejudice, determined I would never write anything that she considered “true”.

The whole thing about writing, is that it’s a compulsion. It comes from the gut. It is our personal truth, the only truth we know, and also the truths we don’t know and are trying desperately to understand by writing them out, over and over again. And in fiction, truth is not always universal, because there are so many different ways to write it.

When we submit our work, we open ourselves to opinion and critique. All critique should be listened to with an open ear, but not all critique is valid. The only way you learn to discern the difference is by listening openly, considering carefully, and then going with your gut.

Never write someone else’s story. Only write what you want to write, what your heart and gut knows is true. For that writing instructor, truth was young girls with budding sexualities like ripening tomatoes. For me, truth is vampires and voodoo. One isn’t more right than the other. They are all truths.

The rules as we see fit:

1. Write 500 words based on one of the two prompts below.
2. Post it to your blog.
3. Give us a small taste in the comments below along with a link to the full text.

As always, feel free to change the name and sex of the characters as you see fit. After all, it’s your story.:

1. Deus ex machina: Where a seemingly unsolvable situation is neatly wrapped up by an intervening god, character, event, object, etc. A device better avoided… except this time. Write 500 words from the view-point of that intervening god, character, event or object.

2. Picture Worth 1,000 500 Words: Write 500 words based on the picture below.

Click for larger image.