I realized today (and this is not exactly a new thought but it comes around every so often and for some reason always surprises me): writers need periods of just fooling around. Of accomplishing nothing solid, no whole chapters, no  rewrites, or outlines or whatever it is we hold our noses to the grindstone for.

For instance today I dipped into the memoir that I’ve been writing for the past five years and added a little something to page 41. Then I checked in with the beginnings of a new writing book I’ve recently come up with and fooled around with that for awhile and got kind of excited about it. But then I had promised to write twenty postcards for Chris Bubser’s campaign for Congress (and if you’re in the 8th district in California you want to vote for her) so I addressed and wrote a few postcards, and then at 12:30 I took the meditation session at the Hammer Museum via Zoom. Then I called the appliance guy up in Lake Arrowhead about the fan for my cabin refrigerator that no longer keeps things cold. Then I went back to the memoir and rewrote the first line of the Prologue.

Nelson and Nina follow me around the house looking for something to actually happen, or to settle down for the usual long haul. And there usually is a long haul for something – doing publicity stuff for the new book that’s coming out in November, or another rewrite of this memoir that I. Will. Not. Give. Up. On. Or the syllabus for my new class at UCLA Extension. There’s always a project.

But today I just keep fooling around with stuff. In the middle of this I thought: I’ve gotta write a post about this. And so I am. And it’s fun. I actually forget this sometimes – it can be fun to fool around with your writing and not take it so damn seriously.

So that’s your writing assignment for the day: have fun.