This is one of my favorite quotes for writers: “We don’t tell ourselves, ‘I’m never going to write my symphony.’ Instead we say, ‘I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.’” – Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

I use this quote a lot in my writing workshops. I even included it in Kicking in the Wall with two writing exercises:

1. Write about what you’re going to start tomorrow. Or next week. Or when the weather gets better, there’s more money, you have more time, or you’re in the mood.

2. Write about what you’re going to start today. Even if you’re not ready or inspired, or you don’t have the time, write the side door into your story – just one idea. One word, one sentence, on paragraph; that’s all you have to write.

And then one day I realized this was exactly what I was doing with a novel I’ve been writing forever and had assured my agent I’d have the final draft of it finished last November.  But you know what happened? I didn’t have the perfect stretch of empty weeks to work on it.  There were classes to teach, family members flying in and out, Thanksgiving and then I started a cooking blog. And then I had cataract surgery in December (less than one day down time), but then Christmas! And a deadline for an essay in January and getting ready for a four day intensive class and so forth. I certainly don’t believe you need to be inspired to write, but I had gotten it into my head that I needed a certain amount of time to focus; I’d go up to the mountains, think, read, write, take long walks and be very calm and productive.

Meanwhile my characters languished on the page and once again I realized there would be no perfect stretch of time and solitude. My life would always be this circus of juggling teaching and family and dogs et al.  There’s only the imperfect now.  So I went back to my novel with a tiny chunk of time and I wrote badly but also felt kind of liberated. I didn’t have the perfect time so what I wrote didn’t have to be perfect.

I don’t have this problem when I have a deadline for a book or an essay; but this novel that I’ve been working on forever hasn’t sold, it has no deadline and I’m struggling to pull it off once and for all and move on.  Maybe each book, each article, essay, poem we write teaches us something. And the lesson with this novel is the old Just Do It.

I’ve been at this for years. You’d think I’d have it figured out by now.