It's a Blinking Cursor sort of day

Blink... blink... blink...

I have 2 days to finish my book, and my mind is a wall. It seems all I can do is stare at that little cursor blinking on my lonely, half empty page and wonder where my imagination has gone.

I really have no excuses.

I've already eaten a package of fruit snacks, avacado toast, a ripe apricot and an entire bowl of chocolate covered popcorn... all in a vain attempt to summon enough endorphins to get my creativity functioning.

Alas, it hasn't worked.

Gone are the days when I truly had an excuse… four little children, constantly interrupting and wanting my attention, as I tried to finish yet another book, attempting to meet the publisher's onerous deadline.

Back then, to even make such an attempt, I had to be thoroughly prepared, trying to make "writing days" a thing that my children would look forward to.

Ha!

The very memory makes me smile at the absurdity of such an idea.

It went something like this:

1.) Drive 20 miles to the store and buy the most tempting looking frozen kids meals I can find... times that by 4 and then by as many days as I was planning to attempt to work.

2.) Next, stop by the junk food aisle and stock up on plenty of utterly unhealthy sugar treats in the form of cakes, fruit snacks, chocolate covered Ho-Hos and whatever else looks completely irresistible!

3.) After that, I hit the drink aisle and fill my cart with multiple boxes of Carpis Suns in whatever flavors my darling children chose.

At this point, their eyes are popping out of their heads in delight. They join arms and sing songs of supreme joy as they skip all the way to the check-out stand, cheerfully helping me load the coveted goods into the car.

4.) Finally, we stop by the video store where I'd let my adorable offspring check out no less than 8 - 10 movies of their own choosing.

All of this results in the desired outcome that they are deliriously happy with the prospect that Mommy is going to have a writing day!!!

We had this agreement, my children and I, that if they would let me write, then I would let them eat fat, sugar and gooey preservative cakes, watching tv until their brains turned to mush or they went into corn syrup induced comas, or went crazy and ate each other… as long as they did it quietly, it was all good!

Only it never quite worked out the way I had planned.

Oh, they LOVED all the crazy TV dinners AND the movies AND the snack cakes, and gobbled them up… happily so. That part was never a problem. The detail that never seemed to quite work out came afterward… as I was attempting to escape to a quiet corner within the house, protective ear-wear in place, trying my absolute best to block out whatever noises were raging on the tv, all in a very difficult effort to concentrate.

Any authors out there know that it takes some work to get into "the zone", that amazing place where the cursor no longer blinks on an empty page, but rather where the story has finally congealed in your mind and you are writing your heart out, as fast as your fingers can fly across the keys. It’s a magical place where you can laugh at your own jokes, unashamed, cry at the imagined tragedies you've written or smugly languish in pleasure at whatever clever plot twist you’ve dreamed up.

It's not really something you can just flip off and on. You're either in there, or you're not.

At my house, all those years ago, I would get my children settled, sneak upstairs to my room and almost make it into "the zone", before it would start... Not the writing... the other stuff.

"Mommy! Barry just pulled my hair!"

"Mommy! I have to go to the bathroom and Kamaron has the door locked!"

"Mommy! Clarke won't let me watch the movie I want!"

"Mommy! Savannah keeps tattling on me!"

"Mommy! The cat just barfed all over the couch!"

“Mommy, are you done yet?”

“Mommy! How much longer?”

“Mommy! Barry let the dog in the house and she’s eating all the Ho-Ho’s!”

And then, after semi-successfully blocking all the cacophony out, then comes the one that makes your blood run cold:

"Mommy! Fire! Fire! Fire!"

To this, I finally throw the computer aside and run down the stairs so recklessly fast that I break my big toe half way down... only to find that the "Fire" is a piece of raisin toast stuck in a toaster, turned all the way up to the highest setting.

Limping into the kitchen, I retrieve the burnt toast, ban the kids from the toaster for the next 6 months and walk to a wall, where I begin banging my head against it in utter futility!

"Come on, you guys! Really!?!"

Take this scene, repeat it dozens of times and you have a fairly accurate idea of my attempts at being a writer while my children were young. I'm sure it's why I haven't written much for a while.

Fast forward twelve years:

I now have only one "child" left at home and he is 17. Gone are the distractions... there is absolutely no one to fight with, to complain about, to have to share the t.v. with or to lock out of the bathroom. In fact, he's really pretty good about the whole thing.

So, why does the cursor continue to blink at me?

Blink...

Blink...

Blink...

Is it trying to taunt me?

Or is it actually just laughing at me?

*Sigh*

I then realize… I’m just missing my kids!

Putting my computer aside, I walk to the wall...

Bang my head against it a few times…

Just for old time’s sake...

And - Voile la!

I'm back on track!

... works every time!