This Is All I Can Do

Guest Blog By James Black

Quick note from Elizabeth: The Book Writing World is so much more than me. It’s a community of wonderful, talented writers, some with writing degrees, publications and such, some with amazing life experiences, all with great stories to tell. So I’ve opened the blog to them, as well. We start with James’ great take on that brilliant idea that won’t let you sleep . . .

Bleary-eyed from revision. I finished, or so I thought, around 1:30 a.m. Went to bed. Thought of something I simply had to change. Got up to make a note, but Oh, I thought, if I just go ahead and make this one little change I’ll sleep better. Changing one little thing became a process. Like cooking without a recipe when you’re hungry for anything.

For a while when you’re drowsy, you feel light and just sort of float over and around obstacles your internal editor has set up. Ideas that were timid a few hours before suddenly have the courage to show themselves to you. You’ve got something else that you must do, but suddenly, there they are. Trying to limit the time you have–Just a few more minutes!–makes it harder to refuse them. These ideas have patiently waited until it’s safe for them to share their brilliance with you, and you’re going to abandon them so you can go snore? Come on, buddy, do you think the clichés aren’t true? Writing is hard. And if being screwed up isn’t what made you want to be a writer, the writing process will sure as hell finish the job. I know you think you’re the most innovative writer of this blah blah blah, but hey, there are traditions that must be respected here.

At 2:15 a.m., on my fourth journey out of bed, I said to myself, This is all I can do. Thank you, ideas, for your courage. But it doesn’t matter anymore. I must sleep. I have to work in the morning. The floating sensation was gone. I became aware of my body, which felt heavier than ever as I trudged through the darkened house to bed.

I don’t want to write another word ever again, I thought. Then I dreamed, although I can’t remember the details. When I woke, the heavy feeling remained as I got myself ready and drove to work. Somewhere along the way I remembered that I still needed to come up with a different title for the piece I’d been working on.

I suddenly had that feeling you get when you know someone is looking at you but you don’t know where they are. I knew it must have been the idea of the perfect title, peering at me from one of the air vents. It was surely waiting until I tried to make a left turn from the center lane across oncoming traffic. That would be the moment it would emerge and tell me why I just couldn’t live without it.

James Black has been a member of Book Writing World for two years. He started writing in Mrs. Johnson’s first grade class and, more than a few years later, earned a Master’s at the University of Missouri–Columbia. His work has been published in the anthology The New Queer Aesthetic on Television and in the journal Anon. He’s close to finishing his first novel, which is about the family of a closeted, gay soldier stationed in Iraq. James lives in central Pennsylvania with his partner of sixteen years. Check out his blog, Quota, at http://j3quota.wordpress.com/.