Do you remember the old Carpenter’s tune lamenting such days? I used to like that song but over the years—especially since gaining the privilege to write every day—I’m a living contradiction to those sad lyrics.
The fact is, I love Mondays! I try toning it down as I send off hubby and kids (even though my husband loves his job too, and is probably just as eager to get back to the weekly routine of it). But I do try hiding my happy dance until after the bus driver has taken away my boys for the day. I don’t want to lose my mother-of-the-year chances, after all. (Just kidding…I was never in the running.)
I don’t even mind rainy days, especially when I don’t have to venture outside. Weekends find me busy, and I do love being with my family, but the fact is I’m out of my routine. I eat differently, I sleep differently. Sometimes I feel restless—which almost never hits me during the week when I’m working on or researching a book. Those are things I can only do in quiet solitude. So I guess it’s true about writers being in danger of turning into hermits if they let themselves—or if they don’t have a family or close friends pulling them back to real life.
Which, as the book I’m reading right now tells me, is such an irony. Here’s a quote from The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner (a wonderful book recommended by my agent, Rachelle Gardner, to anyone who wants to write).
The writer labors in isolation, yet all that intensive, lonely work is in the service of communicating, is an attempt to reach another person.
Isn’t that what fiction is about? Not just to entertain—that’s the obvious goal—but the reason behind the entertainment is that the words touch something in us that we can relate to. We connect with characters in a book because they react in a way we think we would react. Therein lies the attempt to reach another person. Writers succeed when the reader is touched by that attempt.
So here I am, living in a contradiction. Again. Such is life, and I guess I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Join Me!