Shoveling Cultural Snow

It is amazing sometimes how much of a head of steam I can build up over absolutely nothing.

It's Friday here in my slice of the world, and the weather is mild (or so says our building's climate control). Work is pleasantly slow, the office quiet on account of BlizzCon. I've got no concrete social obligations until Sunday. So my mind is wide open, and all I want to do is write.

But sometimes that imperative is damaging. I am sitting here at my desk, feeling the urge to do something constructive toward my writing career; but I don't have any thing specific I want to do. Past experience tells me that writing on my lunch break results in cramped prose, and I don't have the materials together to send out that novel query I want to deal with next week, nor does my thumb drive appear to have the finished version of this month's story submission. But still, there is the burning need to Accomplish. And so I blog.

This isn't accomplishing anything, you say; and you're right. You're absolutely and totally right. But there is something about the act of blogging that scratches the proper neurons—something about the fingers bashing the keys, the primal-quick decisions of word choice and pacing. It's methadone for the soul. It's jumping jacks in the kitchen during the commercial break.

Tonight, there will be writing. Oh how there will be writing. I can already taste whatever I shovel into my mouth to keep myself going. But for now, I just need to get through the day.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the tendency to characterize themselves as a puppet of outside forces is common to both artists and junkies.