16. NUDGE

Shrove Tuesday – I’m all gung ho to start my yearly writing exercise, committing to write and publish every day of Lent. I begin to ponder the things I will say, and crank up the old brain engine for the excitement of getting a fresh new word as a trigger point every day.

Ash Wednesday – I bookmark thee online Random Word Generator sites, setting up certain parameters around when I will write, how many words I’ll let myself see before I have to take one and run with it. I grab a chunk of daylight and plunk myself in my comfy recliner, laptop all charged and ready. I choose a random noun and off I go, letting my head go wherever the word takes me at the moment.

Thursday- I teach guitar till 8:30 at night, then on the way home my 13 year-old granddaughter Sophie and I head over to get a smoothie at Station Park after the last class.  Soph is one of my best students in my advanced class, and I feel awfully lucky to share this time with her. I get home around 9:15, find some sort of dinner fare that is more nourishing than a Caribbean smoothie, reconnect with Dave for a minute, then while he watches the news I finally sit and thrust myself back into the reclining position, whimpering a bit because instead of getting to veg out and watch the news I need to write. But it’s ok, because I know the benefit outweighs the sacrifice. I’m done writing in an hour or so, then spend another half hour looking for pictures to illustrate the writing. I publish by 1 am and I’m off to bed.

Saturday – It’s 1 am. I’ve just finished preparing singing time for Primary. I click on the RWG (Random Word Generator) and pray for some sort of easy word to come up, one that will lead to a nice little short story I can tell in a half hour’s time. Tomorrow is my birthday…well, actually today, at this point. I get the word CRY and end up writing about four times in my life where H have heard someone I love cry. I end up drained, almost broken, yet wide awake when I finish writing at 3 am. I read and reread and correct before I push the publish button on my blog at 4. I tell the Lord, “Thanks for the body” as I crawl in bed just about an hour before the sun rises. I struggle mightily to stay awake in church five hours later.

Friday next – It’s late. The kitchen’s a mess from making dinner for a sick friend and tomorrow morning we rehearse for a Saints on the Seas Fireside. I revamp the script, and run through the song key’s and lyrics, printing out seven copies of the script and songs for the cast. “Dang it!” I complain as I slip my nightgown over my head, ready to brush my teeth, “I haven’t done my word yet!” I make it to bed by 2:30 am.

Every year I tell myself that I will get myself into a writing groove where I get up and do my writing first thing in the morning. And it works for about a day and a half. And every year, by the time Easter has arrived, I have too many words based on “words” and I am hashed! Like, I don’t write EVER again in my blog unless someone DIES! I start out really well, and writing is not a part of the end of my day routine… until about day three of 40 days of Lent! Then the hour I go to bed is nudged back. Daily. Nudged so far back that I eventually end up going down when the sun rises and I am a circadian wreck!

Tonight though…tonight I have taken my nightly Benedryl before I started writing. I am currently falling asleep between sentences. That little anti-histamine that keeps me from scratching my entire flesh off my bones. I am being nudged to sleep. And I must go.

Night.