Chopping Away at the Writer’s Block and the ADHD

Image of a dictionary entry for "focus."
©Beret Olsen 2022

I don’t know what frustrates me more about writing—struggling to start or struggling to finish. Maybe it’s all that floundering in the murky middle.

I’ve been proofreading a book about teaching middle and high school students to write. The advice therein for students with writer’s block provides little solace and no end of entertainment for me. That said, here I am typing away. At last! A topic! It took me twenty-eight minutes to get creaking along on this trajectory after three false starts in completely different directions: one about missing my kids, one about lies I’ve told them, and one about the sound of snowfall. Each of those ideas petered out before I had two complete sentences.

Now look: I am actually writing about not being able to write. (stops. has a few swigs of coffee and readjusts the seating situation.) (Googles genetic splicing for a story that refuses to be finished, then watches a fascinating YouTube video about CRISPR.) (sits and stares at screen. has more coffee.)

One suggestion for writer’s block is to use a thesaurus. Has the author tried this? (types several unfriendly comments about this advice. erases them.) (sits and swigs coffee.) (recalls a sixth grade writing assignment, for which the thesaurus was a major crutch. shudders at the misguided use of the word “prestidigitator” and so many other poor choices. remembers the severe scolding received in the margins.)

Perhaps the problem is that I am looking for ideas about character motivation—or an actual plot—not for words. I love words. I can think about words all day. Case in point: crestfallen. Is that not the most poetic term? (looks it up.) I have always assumed that it simply meant disappointed, but turns out it includes an element of shame. News to me. (looks around in the Os with no purpose. just likes Os.) There’s odoriferous, which not only is a delight to say aloud, but also can be used to mean morally offensive. That could come in handy. (thinks about people and things that would like to call odoriferous.)

I’m old school, so in addition to online resources, I have the eleventh edition of Merriam-Webster’s next to me at all times. We are good friends. Merriam often opens to the page with “chowderhead” at the top left, just to bait me. True. This has happened at least twenty-five times. She reminds me that there is such a thing as “couch grass” and “funk hole;” that cats can be “fubsy.” We laugh a lot about these sorts of things. Imagine if someone like me also had a thesaurus sitting by my side. I would never get around to writing!

(sips lukewarm coffee. stares at screen.) (looks at meme about pronouncing certain words as if they were the names of Greek heroes: Articles. Tentacles. Barnacles.)

But the one suggestion on the list that I keep coming back to is this: Lower your expectations.

I’m still digesting that one.

That advice is so terrible, it is genius. So wrong and so right at the same time.

My expectation, unfortunately, is that I will not finish this.

Image of the index notches on the side of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition.
©Beret Olsen 2022

Want Ads

Photo Credit: earthisthering
Photo Credit: earthisthering

Wanted: a month of Sundays

The right kind, with clean sheets. The ones with the cat walking across the newspaper while you are trying to read the book reviews.

And it’s just rained, so the air is transparent and fresh. You can wear your shiny, knee-hi rubber boots without appearing mentally ill, and the puddles quake with your impending splash.

The chores are done and the fridge is full, so you can walk, just walk, instead of buying milk and eggs.

There is already a plan for dinner, and everyone is old enough—but not too old—to feed themselves.

On Barbies and Bodies and Beauty

Thought I would share an essay I wrote for another site with the larger world:

Puberty is a wild ride; I must have forgotten. Or maybe–despite the hideously awkward classroom discussions and cheesy pamphlets–I just experienced puberty as my own ri…

Source: On Barbies and Bodies and Beauty

Dear *sshole Neighbor

Congratulations! You discovered my tipping point.
Congratulations! You discovered my tipping point.

Dear Asshole Neighbor,

I’m in a bit of a funk. I know you don’t care, but I’m telling you anyway. After the letter I received from city public works today, I thought we should get better acquainted.

I got laryngitis right in time for my college reunion, so I got to stand around drinking seltzer, smiling and nodding like an idiot, while everyone else had the time of their lives. Then I got much, much worse.

I was dismally ill through the entirety of my family’s big awesome vacation to Hawaii, including one memorable day at the Kaiser Permanente clinic there, because that’s fun. I enjoyed reading last September’s Better Homes and Gardens cover to cover as well as a thoughtful booklet about advance health care directives. That was such an informative way to squander a day in paradise.

I flew home and was sick some more. A month later, despite giving up coffee, alcohol, talking, sleeping, and–especially today–joy, I’m still sick.

A couple of hours ago, I had another visit with my doctor. He assures me that I will probably be feeling better by the end of July…which will be right after a big family trip across country to visit my mother. Here’s hoping the recovery comes before my husband abandons his hacking, sleepless wife.

No big deal, right? Just a pesky virus. Things could obviously be much worse.

Did I mention that my big, fabulous book deal just disintegrated? No?

Well. My big, fabulous book deal just disintegrated. Maybe it’s for the best, you may be thinking. After all, the publisher had a penchant for the playful caveman font. Still.

Add to this the fact that my best friend is apparently breaking up with me…via email. Ouch.

But instead of crying in a heap about my broken heart and broken dreams, or going to bed in order to finally, actually, maybe start feeling better, I have been copyediting and photo editing and cleaning out the closets, taking small people to the eye doctor and dentist and piano lessons, and grocery shopping and saying goodbye to friends who are moving 3,000 miles away, and labeling every goddamn pair of my kids’ underpants with a Sharpie for camp.

Imagine my surprise then, when I was reminded–after living in this house for almost eleven years–that I happened to forget to bring my garbage cans in. Once. I left them out there for one day.

AND YOU TOOK A PICTURE AND SENT IT TO THE GODDAMN CITY so they would start harassing me.

Really?

Have you nothing better to do?

I’m sorry you were so overwhelmed by the incredible monstrosity of my tidy row of bins that you were completely unable to walk over and knock on the door like a reasonable human being and were instead forced to take a photo and print it out and mail it to the goddamn city.

Guess what? I’m going to sneak over there today to cough on your mail. And maybe lick your door knob.

Cheers.

Dear Beloved and Fuzzy Contaminants

Lest you think I am a crazy cat lady, I have written a 100-word lament to my nemeses this week: Morse, Diamond, and Sapphire.

***

Dear Kittens,

It’s lucky you filthy pigs are adorable, because your explosive deposits up the wall are not appreciated.

Please do not fall into your own steaming pool of poo and then climb my leg–I do not wish to share your intestinal parasite. Also, I’m running low on bleach. Please aim for the box with your leaky hindquarters–and the gullet with your malodorous wet food–before wandering off to destroy the couch or wedge yourself irretrievably behind the credenza. I do love you like a bad boyfriend, but I may need to break up to save my sanity.

***

P.S. I’ve run out of fecalyzers. Let’s nip this bug in the bud so I do not have to continue taking your stool samples with chopsticks and Ziploc baggies. The middle school carpool and I feel a little weird driving around with fecal matter on coldpacks in the trunk. Thanks.

Why You Should Never, Ever, Ever Get A Tattoo (but Having a Baby is Fine)

Just stumbled across this. Enjoy!

The Ugly Volvo

I’m not super pro-tattoo or anti-tattoo.  I’ve debated getting one in the past but never that seriously.  But my mother is vehemently anti-tattoo.  Listed below are the reasons my mother has always given me for why I shouldn’t get a tattoo.

And I understand that she’s from a different generation.  And I love my mother very much.  She’s a really wonderful person and I’m not saying none of them is a legitimate reason, but I’m saying that after having a child, I find it really hard to take any of them seriously.

And so in case you were headed out to the tattoo parlor as we speak, here are:

10 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER, EVER, EVER GET A TATTOO ACCORDING TO MY MOTHER (but having a baby is fine)

1.  “A Tattoo is Forever”

Yes, a tattoo is forever.  Totally forever!  Except that a tattoo can, if needed, be erased with a laser.

 *Some of you read that and immediately thought, "I am so exhausted, please I need a laser that can temporarily erase a three year-old," but sorry, that is not a thing that exists.  
No…

View original post 841 more words

Fear Factor

Copenhagen Metro escalators from www.wikipedia.org.
Copenhagen Metro escalators from http://www.wikipedia.org.

Thankfully, I outgrew my fear of escalators, because I had to ride them endlessly to entertain my small children on rainy days.

I still a harbor a garden variety of phobias, however:

Basements

The dentist

Salmonella

Heights

Failure

Awkward phone calls

Small, enclosed spaces

Clowns

Nuclear waste

Botulism

Scabies

Teratoma with teeth, or hair, or partially formed limbs, for that matter

I don’t spend much time thinking about any of the above, though.

Lately, my biggest fears–and hopes–are for my children and what may lie ahead for them.

It’s a big, crazy, amazing world.

*****************

Posted for today’s Daily Prompt–a strange topic for Thanksgiving.

LAME DISCLAIMER

Apologies, apologies. I should have posted something eons ago.

I know there are people out there with a laser-like focus–the kind who are raising the next president all while working full-time, serving up leek tarts, volunteering regularly, going to school on the side, and writing a novel in their spare time.

It’s not like that over here.

Now that summer vacation is underway for the two smallest people in my house, it has become nigh impossible to coax a coherent paragraph or two out of the day.

Instead, I’m sending warm greetings from Camp Beret.