I call my Mom while driving home from campus. She is at a restaurant with friends but answers the phone anyway.
She tells me they've read every chapter I've written and they're trying to go through her phone to find pictures from our trip and guess what comes next in the story.
I laugh. Like the pictures have anything to do with this story! You were THERE and this is new to you!
She laughs and tells me she's given up eating rice until I finish writing this book.
This is her solidarity with me because I've given up drinking wine (and tequila and anything else, but wine most of all) until I finish writing the entire first draft of this book.
One glass of wine (zinfandel, pinot noir, cabernet - something robust, peppery, full bodied) and I feel relieved, like I've been hugged, like I can *finally* exhale and relax.
Two glasses of wine and I can sit down and write and write and keep writing through laughing and through tears that I shake off like a dog flapping water off his head.
Wine sits next to me, quietly, supportively. Every time I need to take a break I lean back, breathe, take a warm helpful sip and keep writing.
So a few weeks ago I decided to give up writing in the sanctuary of wine's warm embrace and show myself (and you, and anyone who wants to compare me to Hemmingway, because that's cool) that I don't need wine or diet coke or anything else outside of me to write this story.
No thanks at all to wine I knocked out three chapters yesterday alone, I tell myself, and wonder if I'm only writing this fast -- I'm hoping to finish writing the whole book by next Saturday -- so I can return to the familiarity of wine's warm embrace.
I soberly defer judgement until after finishing the first draft. Maybe I'll think of something else, something better, to do. I'm open to that.
She tells me they've read every chapter I've written and they're trying to go through her phone to find pictures from our trip and guess what comes next in the story.
I laugh. Like the pictures have anything to do with this story! You were THERE and this is new to you!
She laughs and tells me she's given up eating rice until I finish writing this book.
This is her solidarity with me because I've given up drinking wine (and tequila and anything else, but wine most of all) until I finish writing the entire first draft of this book.
One glass of wine (zinfandel, pinot noir, cabernet - something robust, peppery, full bodied) and I feel relieved, like I've been hugged, like I can *finally* exhale and relax.
Two glasses of wine and I can sit down and write and write and keep writing through laughing and through tears that I shake off like a dog flapping water off his head.
Wine sits next to me, quietly, supportively. Every time I need to take a break I lean back, breathe, take a warm helpful sip and keep writing.
So a few weeks ago I decided to give up writing in the sanctuary of wine's warm embrace and show myself (and you, and anyone who wants to compare me to Hemmingway, because that's cool) that I don't need wine or diet coke or anything else outside of me to write this story.
No thanks at all to wine I knocked out three chapters yesterday alone, I tell myself, and wonder if I'm only writing this fast -- I'm hoping to finish writing the whole book by next Saturday -- so I can return to the familiarity of wine's warm embrace.
I soberly defer judgement until after finishing the first draft. Maybe I'll think of something else, something better, to do. I'm open to that.
