Relentless

Here is something my husband does: he uses dry-erase markers on things that are not dry-erase boards.  Mirrors, windows, refrigerator doors - I will randomly find to-do lists, upcoming bills, people to call, exercise routines, or inspirational quotes on any surface that will take (and hopefully one day lose) dry-erase ink.  So I find dry-erase markers in unusual places in our house, like the bathroom sink.

One time that habit came in handy for me.  I was folding clothes on the bed and half-listening to an interview on the radio in my bathroom, which was tuned to NPR.  It seemed like an appropriate clothes-folding soundtrack.  But suddenly the person being interviewed mentioned Steven Pressfield, the author who brought Sparta to vivid, shocking life for me years ago in Gates of Fire.  I tried and failed, I'm sure through some disastrous fault of my own, to read Tides of War, but Gates of Fire had seared Steven Pressfield's name into my memory.  So I went into the bathroom to hear the interview better.  And I heard and scrawled in dry-erase ink the following quote from Pressfield: Show the Muse you're serious.

Whenever I'd thought of the Muse before, I'd regarded her as the personification of inspiration or luck.  If I saw her at all, I saw her dancing away from me out of sheer perversity.  But Pressfield made me think of her another way - as a severe but valuable teacher I wanted to impress.  I'm sure you've heard the Mary Heaton Vorse quote: "The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair."  Well, I thought as I looked at the words on my bathroom mirror, that I can do.

It was the work of a moment, as Bertie Wooster would say, to change the time on my alarm as I stood there, contemplating.  The next morning, I woke up at four.  I did the same thing every weekday for a few months.  And for a while, rising early worked for me.  It boosted me over the feeling that I had no time to spare for writing.  Then daylight savings time arrived and completely kicked my butt.  I lost my rhythm.  But from time to time, especially when I stopped writing every day, I set my alarm early.  I wanted those extra hours, yes, but I also wanted to prove myself to the Muse.  Look, I would say as I opened my computer while stars still winked sleepily outside, I'm serious, lady.  So you'd just better show up.

Read my first book, Dawn Hyperdrive and the Galactic Handbag of Death!  You can find a copy at Amazon or Smashwords, and you can try the first chapter free at my website.