Filling the well....

That sounds dirty. But it's not -- I'm referring to Hemingway's quote about his writing process. He wrote in the morning and then took the afternoon to "fill his well" so he'd be ready to write the next morning. Now, filling the well is something every writer needs to do. We all need to seek out inspiration and ideas and creativity. For Hemingway this meant getting hammered, loading a couple of rifles and going big game hunting. Oddly enough -- I don't think there are many of us out there who still get to do this. Margaret Moore? Is that the secret of your success? Big game hunting? I know Maureen has been known to have a few mid afternoon drinks and watch Friday Night Lights, hunting for Tim Riggins, but somehow I don't think that has the same effect as Hemingway's afternoons.

Sadly, these days my afternoons are all about picking up the Mr. Potato head pieces (stupid idea to get him that toy. All the kid does is empty the bucket out and chuck the earrings at the dog.) Emptying the dishwasher, staring into the freezer wondering what I'm spending all that money on at the grocery store if my stupid freezer is always empty. A few days ago I watched two episodes of Battlestar Gallactica in a row -- that was fantastic. Almost like big game hunting - or maybe almost like getting hammered - either way, more inspiring that digging under the furniture for plastic potato ears and mouths. If I were writing a book called "The Male Toddler and His Unreasonable Attachment to Fire Trucks and Poop" I'd be done with the thing by now, having all the inspiration in that area that a woman needs. I've got laundry, grocery shopping, someone actually has to pay the bills, walk the dog, write the blog and clean the crayon off the tv set.

Is it any freaking wonder my well is empty?

Sinead's post reminded me that as stay at home mom's we need entertainment to inspire us. Because we don't really leave the house! In my life before my son I would ride the subway and look at people and write their stories based on their clothes and the way they sat and what they read and then I'd take what I had come up with and create the opposite of it and try to reverse all my expectations. It was a fun game. Helpful and creative and useful to me as a writer. I don't even have that anymore. Every time I get on the subway these days, I'm like my son, distracted by the lights and scared of the loud noises.

This will change at some point. Right? It has to. Because there is a year until the next JR Ward book and a writer's strike on and I am sucking air at the bottom of my well.

PS - I am adding this after this has been posted for a while, because I forgot the whole point of this post in the middle of my stay at home mom rant. The point is -- these moments, I think are what separate the writers from the I wish I was a writers. When the muse is nowhere to be found and you still have a page count to fill - these moments are what scare a lot of writers away. When you just pound stuff out and you know it's awful but you have to do it -- ugh. Even writing that made me depressed. But it's what we have to do - because if this was easy, everyone would do it.

Still, it would be nice if those Hollywood writers weren't on strike right now....