Friday, August 27, 2004

Why I'm NOT a Writer


After spending hours on end at the keyboard hacking out that "series" of entries that just kept going on and on and on… I realized why I could never be a writer. I don’t have the physical stamina for it. Writing is a completely sedentary activity that takes an amazing amount of physical aptitude… And, whatever it takes, I ain’t got.

My ass is just killing me from being on it so much, and I’ve developed a permanent stabbing pain behind my right eye from staring at the screen and the keyboard (of course I can’t type without looking at the keys!) I dropped my laptop on the floor, which caused a temporary malfunction that made me have to BANG on the "s" key to make it work…(clickety-clickety-clickety-click, click…shitMASH…clickety-clickety-MASH..) I fully expect to wake up tomorrow morning and wonder why the ring finger on my left hand is swollen and bent.

I have a desk. In fact, I have an entire office, with two desks. One of which was specifically set up as the parking place for this very laptop that I am now sitting on the FLOOR of my bedroom typing away on. Too much freedom with a laptop, by golly. You can’t chain me to no stinkin’ desk anymore. I write in bed. Or draped across my leather easy chair. Or downstairs in the family room on the couch. You’d think that would make the marathon sessions easier, right?

Wrong. After a two or three-hour session at the keyboard in bed, with six pillows stacked up behind me, I can just barely throw my legs out over the edge to the floor. Standing completely upright can be accomplished in no less than ten seconds. And then I hobble down the stairs on one foot and one stump of wood, because something invariably suffers from a serious interruption of blood circulation when I sit for such long periods of time.

Nope, I’ll never be able to become a "Writer." My creaky old, middle-aged bones just couldn’t handle it.

6 comments:

  1. Sometimes I sit on a pillow!  HA!

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  2. What I need to know is, is all that time devoted strictly to writing, or is there some reading involved?  LOL!  When my professors wonder why we stay up the night before doing a paper that she assigned two weeks ago, I think how I spent those weeks thinking about the paper.

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  3. I like the suggestion about the pillow. I have a perfectly good office chair. The darn thing is good for about an hour and things start going numb that you don't really want going numb. :-)

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  4. Hmm...I never thought about the physical stamina involved. I could never be a writer because I bore too easily. I have a laptop too and use it in bed right now until I finish doing my desk. I want to get a wireless router once my desk is done so I can still have freedom with my computer.

    You are definitely a writer though. An excellent one! :-) ---Robbie

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  5. Oh come on! I don't think it's about physical stamina.  Although maybe I have it, because I've sat and wrote stuff so long until my butt hurt from the chair.  Until my eyes were hurting from staring at the screen, and the back of my neck was aching.  But I never wanted to stop writing! I just thought I should get up more often and stretch, look away from the screen. ;-)
    Donna

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  6. Try this, it works for me(although I do not consider myself in your category as a writing talent). Logg on. Drink a beer. Write a draft. Drink a beer. Proof read. Drink a beer.Take a pee. Drink a beer. Repeat.           just kidding . you Are a  writer. Every thing dosent have to have the volume of war and peace.  Sometimes a short zinger is great.

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