WRITING WOES, WOWS & WHEWS

A MONTHLY COLUMN :: by Gina Welborn

ALL CLOGGED UP!

#30 :: May 20, 2007

Twelve hours on a bus with 25 middle school students. I’m good with that. Think of all the sleep I’d get, not to mention all the babysitters for my kids.

When hubby invited me to come along with the church youth group on a Spring Break mission trip to Detroit, I wasn’t initially excited, but I figured, “Why not?” What I didn’t anticipate was my 7-week-old being constipated. Our trip began on Monday at 6:30 a.m. By 5:30 p.m., we were still in Richmond. Why? An easy explanation: the alternator went out on Bus #1. Actually, it was a little more complicated, but automobile terminology is not my thing, so I’ll leave it at “alternator problem.”

But they got it fixed and we were on the road the next morning. What wasn’t moving along was Niley’s intestines. Now I know breast-fed babies don’t always have daily bowel movements. (If you don’t care for bowel movement discussions, please bear with me. I won’t get graphic and I have a nice writing-related point.) Niley, on the other hand, isn’t a 100% breast-fed baby. (If you don’t care for breast-feeding discussions, please bear with me. I won’t show pictures and I have a nice writing-related point.) She normally poopies in the evening between 6-8 p.m.

On Monday, no poop.

On Tuesday, no poop.

Well, sorta. See, when she was on the bus, she preferred sleeping to eating. I’m the same way. Put me in a moving vehicle and I’ll sleep for hours and never get hungry. Talk about an easy way to lose weight. Anyway, by dinnertime, she still hadn’t pooped and was getting rather cranky about it. Let’s just say the customers in Taco Bell didn’t stay long to eat their food. Loud and gassy were her middle names. Actually, Nicole is, but for the sake of this article, work with me, ‘k?

The youth in the restaurant kept asking me if I had a bottle to give her to get her to stop crying. Oh, I did, but I also know that a crying fit often pushes out the poop. I let her wail. Bad side of that was her wailing caused my breasts to leak. (Sorry for the minor graphic.) I left Taco Bell with a wet shirt, a screaming baby, and a 3-yr-old wearing no pants because her brother spilled icy water on her when they were fighting over a napkin. Don’t ask. Of all the things to fight over, a napkin isn’t my first choice.

Almost the same moment I stepped back on the bus, I smelled the sweet smell of relief. My adorable critter pooped. We were both happy. The youth on the bus weren’t.

Had we been near a pharmacy or Wal-Yuck, I would have bought some infant suppositories to put Niley out of her misery and me too because when she’s clogged, she doesn’t nurse well. Hmm, not sure why that is.

I was so frustrated with her constipation that I was ready to force something into happening instead of just letting it run a natural course.

As writers, we sometimes experience mental constipation. We want to write, we sit at the computer or in a chair with pen and pad, but nothing happens. So we do nothing because we’re “waiting for the muse to strike.” What a cop out! Yep, that’s what I said. People who “wait for the muse to strike” so they can write are like rainy day fans. As long as things are going good, you’re going to support the team, but let a stream of bad luck or poor play hit and you’ve hidden your jerseys and baseball hats in the closet.

Real writers don’t live in closets.

Real writers take mental suppositories.

Far too often multi-published authors have said it’s better to write crap than to write nothing because they can’t fix a blank page. How true it is. For the last several months, I’ve mulled over different article ideas. I’d lay…lie…umm, recline in bed and mentally write my article and figure I’d remember it all in the morning. Either I’d forget all I’d written or I’d quit writing halfway because the story wasn’t working for me. I even tried writing things down on paper because I’ve heard that’s what writers do. After a few sentences, I stopped because (1) what I wrote was stupid or (2) I couldn’t think of what to write next.

This morning I said, “That’s it!” No more slogging through article life. I was determined to write something. What you’ve read is my third attempt. Though not a glamorous article or highly informative one, at least it’s an article. Better than nothing.

If you’re waiting for the muse to strike, you may never write anything. But if you are serious about writing, then sit your lazy toosh in a chair and start typing something, anything. If it’s stupid, you can always delete it. Then again, it may take a page or two or even ten for you to hit your groove.

Well, looky there. I’ve written a new article and it wasn’t as painful a process as I feared, especially since it flows nicely into my main point. Jax will be happy. BTW, did you know that eating a ton of chocolate is a natural laxative? Now there you have it: an excuse to eat chocolate.

.

Copyright 2008

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