What you feel is life, what you live is another story.

How In the Hell Do They Do It?

ElephantI don’t know how some writers do it. Onward they go posting many articles a day about all kinds of stuff. I see them all over the internet, posting daily different articles, on various things, for many blogs and I wonder how the hell they do it.

I can write like that sometimes, depending on the inspiration and the muse. Usually, though, my day is so crammed with non-writing essentials of living that I barely have enough time to fill my passion. Other days find me completely spent, the well dry, wondering how the hell they do it.

For me, writing can be akin to going into labor without the pain, blood or “other stuff” that comes with it. I give birth to something, somewhere, and it comes out of me in a rush of raw emotion and conscious expression. In the end, I am usually left drained as if there was great sex involved with a partner I cannot see, but certainly know is there.

Maybe it’s not like labor, but more like the event that created the need for labor. I’ll chuckle a bit at that one.

So, I wonder how they do it. I’m left spent and drained after pouring my heart into my art, and they are pumping out stuff like there will be no tomorrow. Here I am feeling like I just gave birth to a baby elephant and there they are like a fish laying eggs all over the ocean floor. Who is the blessed one? I don’t know, but my proverbial birth canal is sore and tired, screaming at me in a not-so-quiet way that “it ain’t you, pal.”

If you are wondering, I have no idea why I am so obsessed with the reproductive system today.  Maybe it’s because I’m a man. Maybe it’s because I’m a man who once dreamed of being an obstetrician until, one tragic day, I found out I would have to be a gynecologist as well. “I love pizza too much to open a pizzeria” I remember saying in my rather immature way (like it was last week). Frankly, I don’t know how gynecologists do it.

For those of you used to my normal deep, philosophical prose about life and love, I’m sorry if this just doesn’t fit that bill. I’ve been fighting the urge to write about stuff that makes me laugh so much that it’s created a writer’s block of sorts in me. It’s as if the Sun was screaming at me, “You fool, I’m not on the morning horizon any more. I’m a bit west of center now, so stop trying to look for me over there.” I listened, and submitted to simply sitting down and writing what I am told to write, instead of what I want to write.

To those who just sit and write what they want, I’m jealous. I don’t know how the hell you do it.

Oh well, time for this nonsense to end. I’ve got balls to bust and fun to be made in the spaces between the work I have to do. If I don’t end soon these 600 some-odd words will become 1200, or maybe 12,000 and I will have exceeded my own 30 second attention span. I just have to surrender to the fact that I’m an elephant with the attention span of a dog trying to become a fish in a sea I want to bathe in.

Oh, look, squirrel. How the hell do they do that?

1 Comment

  1. Phoenix Rising

    I totally hear you Tom. Writing truly is like giving birth…and on most days I am too spent after…then I just wish to rest, and feel the afterglow!

    Although this is different than your usual, I am waiting for the next baby of yours. Absolutely love your writing. Touches my soul.