A Balanced Diet

Maybe it’s just an oral fixation in need of justification, but recently I’ve discovered that one of my favorite activities–eating–actually helps my writing.

My personal critic, Lefty (short for Left Brain) likes to sit right on my keyboard, rearranging every sentence and paragraph I write. One day he was noticeably absent. Had he just slept late? No, the little guy had found a new occupation, leaving me alone to write as sloppily as I wished. It was the peanut butter M&M’s I had been munching on that so fascinated him. They were lined up in front of the keyboard, to facilitate eating. Now Lefty was busy rearranging them into patterns: two brown, one orange, one red, and two brown again. Then, as I absently picked them off, one by one, he tried furiously to create another pattern from the chaos. The little bugger was so engrossed he actually left my sentences alone!

Suddenly, my characters were finally able to finish that argument they’d been having for weeks. Before I knew it, twelve pages were filled with halfway decent prose–in need of a little editing, sure, but that could be fixed. So now when Lefty begins to get annoying, (particularly in first draft stage) I just open a new bag of M&Ms, and he’s off!

But of course, Lefty isn’t always the problem. Sometimes Speedy Sue comes around, urging me on over my shoulder like a racehorse jockey, and I speed through scenes with no thought whatsoever for consequences. Suddenly, my plot begins to twist and turn like a Louisiana bayou, bogged down with fecund sludge otherwise known as Bad Writing. To occupy her, I’ve discovered sunflower seeds. With my hands too busy divesting the tiny seeds of their shells to type, my mind has a chance to play catch up, and the enticing side road that seemed so appealing before is seen for the potholed path it is. As the shells pile up, my writing slows down, and dialogue that once ran amuck begins to glow with a refined polish, saving endless rewrites later.

So now I keep a desk drawer filled with writing "tools". Lefty’s in anal retentive heaven, Sue is content as a nag out to pasture, and my writing is under my control again. Knowing when to use each device is crucial, of course, similar to balancing yin and yang in Chinese medicine. I’ve learned to carefully gauge my writing. If it pours forth, but stinks like rotten potatoes, I know I need to slow it down. If I’m constantly hitting the delete key, I know I need to let go. Just like a diet must be balanced, so, I’ve found, must the writing process.