Cats, Catnip and Facing Fears Day 2

I'm getting a late start today. Blame it on the cat. Or the dog.


I was already having a hard time sleeping last night because the AC just wasn't cutting it in the ridiculous heat we've been having plus the dog insisted on curling on my feet. My feet were asleep; I wasn't.

I finally dozed off, only to have my daughter wake me in a panic at 3am. Seems the cat was doing some nocturnal wandering and found where DD1 had stored the catnip. The lovely cat dragged the bag of catnip into DD2's bed, chewed through the plastic so there was catnip all over her bed, and then proceeded to go nuts rolling, jumping, literally writhing in the catnip. If you've never seen a cat on catnip, just picture it as the cat equivalent of LSD.


So on to day 2 of reading Dennis Palumbo's Writing From the Inside Out (Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Withing).

First of all, I have to really recommend that anyone who is interested in this discussion purchase a copy of the book. He goes into so much detail and his examples are really helpful in both analyzing your behaviors and helping you to know you're not alone in facing these fears.

"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." -Thomas Mann

Part One - The Writing Life - begins with Mann's quote. Talk about being in good company!

What I particularly like about this book is that Palumbo states outright that he's not promising quick fixes or easy solutions - "Just a different way of thinking that treats you and your struggles at writing with compassion, hope, and the sure knowledge that you're not alone." (p. 13)

In his introduction to this section, Palumbo uses a water wheel he saw in New England as a great metaphor for the writing process. "It's not the velocity, but the weight of the water in each bucket, that turns the wheel." This reminds me so much of the writing advice we see everywhere about persistence and how important it is to keep writing and keep submitting.

So, I'm off to fill my writing buckets.

So if anyone is reading along, how's your writing going?