Start

Getting started is the hardest part.

Actually, scratch that: I have no earthly idea whether or not getting started is, in fact, the hardest part, because I find getting started so difficult that I never start.

If I could be the writer of aphorisms, ala Twain or Bierce, I would be sought after. Throngs would flock to my readings and wait for hours for me to mount the stairs, clear my throat, and, as a hush descended over the multitudes, utter such profundities as, I don’t know, nothing’s springing to mind, but let me assure you- it would be good. Wilde good.

I’ve always been a big believer in brevity. Brevity isn’t such a virtue, though, when it comes to novels. They have to be longer than a page, novels.

What I should do is work up to it. Train like an Olympian marathoner. Start out doing sprints, and then as I get faster and faster on the 100 word dash, take it up a notch and do a 400 word essay. Before you know it, I’m off to the races, being published in all the big magazines.

The truth is, I only find the contents of the inside of my head interesting when there’s no possible way to write- I don’t have a pen, I’m on the treadmill, walking, trying to fall asleep…my God, I’m pithy then. When conditions are ripe to write- nada. When the house is quiet and the sun is slanting through the window just so, when the computer is humming and I’m practically wearing tweed…there’s nothing in there. A blank. It’s maddening.

And sustaining an idea, when one finally comes! Jesus! I can stretch an argument, but still- I can sum it up with the best of them! In school, you know, you have to write those ten page research papers, and mine were always like nine and three-quarters of a page- I just felt that if my argument was right, and if I could choose the right words, I didn’t need to belabor the point. I could say what needed to be said in five pages. Is that so wrong?

Of course, I’m also a product of my society. (Blame it on MTV.) The jump cut! The pundit! The sound bite! Who wants to draw it out?

I’m loath to begin. Another project, another start without finish, another idea on the sand pile. It’s discouraging. The discipline is all, and I got none.