Writers in their natural habitat - how we think

A while back I ran across this quote:

“After you’ve done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.” - Alfred Edward Perlman

I’ve been posting on this blog for well over two years and most of the posts are rants about the need for all of us to follow the path of sanity. Enough already, I hear you saying. I agree. So I’m going to switch gears and stop nagging people about their eating habits and lifestyles.

Several people have urged me to post about writing, but there are more than enough blogs and websites where you can find out how to plot your novel, develop your characters, and find your voice. Instead of duplicating that, I’ve decided to post about writers. We are so far from the path of sanity that you couldn’t find us with a bloodhound and a GPS.

Here’s the first thing you need to know about writers: we’ll do anything to avoid writing.

I used to have a self-imposed rule that I couldn’t start work on the book in progress until I’d won a game of computer Solitaire without turning the cards over more than once. Thank goodness for Facebook, Twitter, and really useful websites! These days writers can put off actual work for hours with the legitimate excuse that they have to check social media, HuffPost, Salon.com, and Daily Zen.

Another thing you should know about writers is that we enjoy research. We enjoy it so much, in fact, that we’ll spend years researching something that we’ll never need to know. For example, I’ve spent the better part of a decade trying to find out whether vampires sneeze.

A certain writer of comedic mysteries was once obsessed with learning the names of the individual parts of the chain lock.

Another spent countless hours pondering the many ways in which Superglue could be used to create havoc in an ex-spouse’s house — strictly for the purpose of fiction, mind you.

I know that many people think writers sit in ivory towers contemplating the meaning of life, or at least the meaning of Ulysses. We’d all appreciate it if you’d continue to believe that we are truly that evolved. But honesty compels me to admit that, if you spot a group of writers with their heads together, furiously taking notes, and looking very, very intense, they are probably sharing information about some new weight-loss plan that includes chocolate and booze.