Sometimes It Sucks To Be A Nomad

Sometimes it sucks to be a nomad. No matter where "There" happens to be, I just want to get there. Unless there is here. In that case, I want to be somewhere else.
As a mom, I tend to hurry things along.

We went to San Francisco a few weeks ago for some appointments and the whole time I was rushing. All I could think of was let’s hurry and move to the next thing then I’ll be happy: playing checkers on the patio, going to lunch, the beach, the park. Internally, I was like c’mon, c’mon let’s get this fun over with so we can go home and get these kids to bed.

Logically, this behavior makes no sense but old habits die hard.
 
As a writer I have the same impulse. Sometimes I want to be done before I even start. I spend a lot of time imagining book jackets and acknowledgement pages, I daydream about giving speeches and, as pathetic as it sounds, signing autographs. Not in a pretentious rock-star-signing-someone’s-boob-with-a-Sharpie kind of way, but in a very charming, affable, I’m-a-published-author-but-I’m-just-like-you sort of way.
 


Thank goodness I have some writing groups to go to. When someone gives me a prompt and starts the timer and tells me to write, it snaps me out of the fantasy phase and puts me back into the OK, I’ll just work on this shitty first draft mindset. Which is great or I’d probably never do any actual writing.

I guess writing isn’t so different from riding a camel. Once in a while things get a little smelly or a little slobbery, but I keep the pen moving. I lurch around a lot and sometimes it feels like I’m holding on for dear life but I still keep the pen moving. I guess we never exactly finish the ride. We’re all nomads, after all.