Beggars would ride.
My mom’s all time favorite thing to say to me…except for “wish in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up the fastest.”
And these were her somewhat gross but still wise “mom” sayings upon hearing my adolescent complaints on not getting what I wished for. You see, I wish a lot. I guess everyone does. Think about it. How many times have you wished you had a new pair of brown shoes? Some extra money? More time? A piece of cheesecake? A contest win? A Golden Heart? A multi-book contract?
I can’t count the number of times a day I say “I wish.” And it all starts each morning with the inevitable, “I wish I didn’t have to get up this morning,” and concludes that night with, “I wish I didn’t have to get up tomorrow morning.” Don’t get me wrong, wishes are great – we all need them, just like our dreams and goals. But sometimes our wishing gets in the way of our doing. Or at least it does for me.
I once taught a fabulous poem by Marge Piercy where she said, ‘The people I love best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.” Later in the poem, she says, “I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like the water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward…” Powerful words about not wishing, but doing. Words to convince us that success comes through hard work – hard work that demands having patience and getting one’s hands dirty.
Writing is no more easier than harnessing oneself to a cart or swimming out to sea on a long journey. It takes tremendous patience, energy and toil. It is not enough to wish to be a good writer; good writers work hard, “submerge themselves in the task,” and don’t give up. And when they finish, they have found, “the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satifies, clean and evident.”
This I must remember. For all too often, I wish to be a good writer, but I am unwilling to do what I know is necessary to become a good writer. Because it is much easier to whine about it. To complain about not having enough time. To rail against the rejections. To think every agent or editor is just baised and doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about. It is all together to easy to shift the blame elsewhere.
Sound familiar? Well, maybe you gals are better than I am 
I just sometimes need to remember that to get to where I want to go, I’ve got to put on my walking shoes (or sexy heels!) and get going. So this is a pep talk. I really didn’t mean for it to be a pep talk. It just turned out that way
So, do you sometimes have to get real with yourself? Or do you have someone else who deals straight with you? Or maybe you just have some wise mom sayings?
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Each time I start a new project I have to remind myself it takes hard work and it won’t get done unless I sit at the keyboard and work.
The hardest thing for me is to turn off the desire to edit as I’m writing the first draft. I do edit, but what I really want to do is pour over the first chapter tons of times and this is where I’ve learned to stop. Or at least to remind myself to stop. Write the words, fix it later.
Yeah, hard for me too. I tend to do that when I get stuck. On one hand it’s good because it refreshes in my mind where I am heading, but then again, it can keep you from moving on. I say that to myself too “Just keep going, you can fix it later.” Nice to know someone else does the same thing
I wish my son would take his nap when I’m feeling creative. I think that’s an everyday saying for me. Followed by a big long sigh.
Mom saying? Hm, the only one popping in my head is: she shrugs and says “That’s the way it is.”
Yeah, those little devils never seem to cooperate with our creativity.
I had originally started the post as a list of momisms – cause my mom’s got a buttload of ‘em, but then it just emoted into this thing on working hard. Maybe cause I am guilty of not working hard enough.
My mom’s best quote – “It will feel better when it quits hurting.”
Keri, my daughter is grown, married, and lives in AZ, yet I’m convinced she has an interanl radar that tells her when I’m in the middle of a scene where the words a flowing, because sure as it happens, she calls.
“It will feel better when it quits hurting.” LOL I’m so going to use this one.
Procrastination is my worst enemy. Once I sit down, put my fingers on the keyboard, and focus I’m off and running. But it’s the getting in that darn chair! I can come up with a hundred other things to do on any given day. Things I really hate doing. And then throw in the kids and it’s amazing I get any writing done at all.