“I was terribly afraid of that dog.  I wasn’t afraid that it would bite me; I wasn’t afraid that it would scratch me.  I was simply afraid of it.”

That’s how I feel whenever I contemplate messing around with my book.

I’m not afraid that I will mess it up; I’m not afraid that I will be unable to execute my plans.  I am simply afraid of it.

Today I am taking a second (ok, thirty-fifth) look at the first scene.  It’s a good scene, a solid, character-setting scene, but I must admit that it is a touch backstory-heavy.  I’ve received comments about it in the past, and I’ve always looked at it and decided, “No, no, they’re wrong.  This is the perfect scene.  The scene.  It fits.”

And it does, but that is not enough.  Comments add up.  Today I finally decided to go ahead and see if it can’t simply be cut.

Which means reading over the first several chapters and making sure they still work without the scene.  Which they do, 95% of the time.  The other 5% can be easily polished smooth, but it means touching my novel.  Messing with it.  Taking it out of the Done pile and moving it back to the marshy no man’s land of Not Quite Yet.

This is not something I want to do.

And it has me surfing the web, writing this blog entry, doing everything except my assigned task.  All because of that fear, which is not even about any particular eventuality, but just about… it.  My book.

Rather than pushing that fear aside, I am trying to let it in.  Trying to deal with it.  Trying to gain a little more comfort with discomfort, you know?  Because being afraid is not the same thing as having a problem.

I feel like this is the sort of attitude that could revolutionize my life.  I’m cold?  Not the same thing as having a problem.  I’m tired?  Not the same thing as having a problem.  I’m not saying these things aren’t unpleasant.  I’m just saying it’s possible to know that you’re unhappy, while also knowing it won’t change your expectations for yourself.

Anyway, this first scene revamp is a thing I’m doing.  Which means eventually it will be done.  It’s just a matter of how long it takes me to get there.

Things I Want More of in my Life

• Healthy food
• Home-cooked meals
• Work
• Reading
• Exercise
• Regular sleeping hours
• Keeping up with family and friends
• Cleanliness

Why so depressing?  Because I’m pretty sure I wrote this list around Christmastime 2005.  And the things I want more of in my life?  Still these.

I’m not saying no progress has been made.  In fact, I think each area has gotten a little better.  But “a little better” was not, you know, what I was going for.  I was sort of looking to solve things, not just edge them along.  And now that I’ve uncovered this document, I have a horrible vision of myself making such a list at age sixty, only to find out it’s composed of the exact same items.

Maybe this is normal.  Maybe the things you care about become the quests of your life.  On the other hand, maybe more could be done.

So.  What to do, what to do, what to do?  Make resolutions?  I like resolutions.  But resolutions, I feel, are good for tackling one thing, or two things, or at absolute most three things.  Never, no, never, eight things.  The last thing you want to do is start the year hip deep in resolutions.  It is a perfect recipe for failure.

Well, then, how to simplify?  I recently heard of the idea of choosing a word to meditate on for the year, rather than a set of resolutions.  I like this because it’s simple (if, unfortunately, not very concrete).  And so, for 2010 I have chosen the word Responsibility.

It was a near thing between Responsibility and Discipline.  Discipline might better encapsulate The List, but Responsibility seems bigger somehow.  Like Discipline is about doing the things you must, but Responsibility is about doing the things you can.  Or something Spider-Man would say.

Here we are in February, and I’d guess that my RQ (Responsibility Quotient) for the first month of the year is… hmmm… 50%.  (Remember, if you’re not ranking and scoring things, you’re not having fun.)  I’ll see if I can improve that in February.  Does anybody else do this Word-for-the-Year thing?  If so, what’s yours?

If you don’t, you’re luckier than me. That’s how I feel pretty much every day when I sit down at the computer. And yet by the end of the day, I’ve managed to build some momentum; words are flowing, ideas are humming, and in general, all’s right with the world. Fast forward to the next morning, though, and it’s back to ho hum, morning already, say this game of solitaire looks fascinating.

So when I was browsing through Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit recently, my eye lit on one of the techniques she recommends: Building a Bridge to the Next Day. Basically, it means you develop some little trick or technique for carrying some of your creative energy from one day on into the next, thus sidestepping the morning blues.

Ernest Hemmingway famously never stopped writing until he was sure he knew exactly what was coming next. That was his way of carrying his energy forward. I’m not sure this would work for me, but I’ve developed a little trick of my own.

For the next two weeks, whenever I’m done for the day, I plan to write a little note to myself about what I’m looking forward to in the next day’s work. Something I’m excited about, something I’m writing toward. The more specific the better: “Kitty learns she’s Koko’s guardian,” perhaps, or “Kitty and Gallo nearly kiss.”

I’ll write the note on an index card. Then, for the rest of the day, I’ll use that card as a bookmark. This should result in me touching it several times a day, and hopefully smiling and picturing the moment I’m writing toward. Then, if all goes according to plan, I’ll sit down the next morning and all that anticipation and excitement will translate to a productive morning at the keyboard.

Maybe it’ll work, or maybe it won’t and I’ll have to examine another method of bridge building. Either way it should be fun.

For help, I looked to Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, which was rated reasonably high on Goodreads. It had a bit of advice which every writer has heard before. I paraphrase: “Treat it like a job. Show up every day. Don’t miss a day because of your other responsibilities; people in other industries work those in around their jobs, not vice versa.”

And it had a bit of advice I hadn’t heard before. Paraphrase: “Go ahead and be miserable. Take pride in it. Be proud to say, ‘Yeah, I stuck it out in front of that keyboard, and it was a rotten, rotten, rotten day, but the work’s done.’ ”

Now, for me this was a novel thought. Most of my efforts toward improving my work output have had to do with making myself happier at work, with making it a less painful process. Maybe I’d be happier with some cocoa. Maybe I’d be happier with a change of scenery. Maybe I’d be happier in the morning/afternoon/evening.

You wouldn’t think it’d be so hard to be happy while fulfilling my lifelong ambition and dream, would you? And yet, so it is. There’s the fear, for one thing. The fear that what I’m writing won’t be good enough/successful/long enough/brilliant/worthy/etc. And then there’s the fact that while spinning story ideas is fun, cranking them out on the page is often just hard work.

So I like the idea of embracing misery. It has a sort of macho, hardnosed appeal. The idea that it’s ok to just sit down, and let the fear wash over me, and still Not. Get. Up.

Anyway, I’ll be trying misery on for the next few weeks. At least until I get these final scenes cranked out. And if it works, who knows? I might be miserable for the rest of my life!

Problem is, the productivity bump is starting to taper off. Partly it’s that the novelty of the bookstore has worn off; partly it’s that I’ve discovered I can leech free wifi off the Applebee’s next door. I suppose I could consider moving down the street to the Barnes & Noble, where there’s no free wifi. But that would mean giving up Borders’ sweet hot chocolate with a ridiculous amount of crap on top for B & N’s slightly bitter hot chocolate with next to nothing on top. Bummer.

It would also mean giving up the relationships I’ve been cultivating with the Borders staff. These relationships aren’t exactly a linchpin of my social network, but they allow me to engage in some brief small talk when I hit a lull in my work, and to “rent” my café space on the cheap: I only buy drinks when I’m thirsty, instead of feeling obligated to pay into the coffers each time I visit.

I cultivated these relationships quite deliberately, mostly just by being nice, and by over-ordering slightly in the initial weeks, especially when the manager was in. After a few days, everybody working there knew my name, and now I think I’ve basically become their mascot, sort of a writer-in-residence. They ask me about the book, wish me luck, and when I come back after a few days’ absence, they tell me anecdotes about what I missed. I think I can count on being a “Staff Pick” if any of these people are still working there when my book comes out. And they’re nice guys; they often brighten my day.

Long story short, I’d hate to give all that up. So, the question is, do I have it in me to refrain from logging on to the web? Or is this another distraction I need to eliminate in my life, the same way I eliminated my household distractions by heading out to Borders in the first place?