Kathlene Popa from our sister blog Novel Matters

My husband keeps a photo of me above his desk. It was taken the morning after I finished my first novel. I will never let you see that photo.

It’s just not the picture I formed of myself as a writer, when I was in high school. Back then I’d seen authors on the backs of books. They looked intelligent. They wore the half smiles of those who know the sad truth about life and living. They hung out in shadowy places. They wore black a lot, and preferred their photos taken in black and white, because artists must reflect the dark world we live in. Writers never looked tired on their book jackets. Their hair was softly tousled in a way that looks un-contrived, but actually takes a little work. I know.

Sad to think I look nothing like that – except I do like to wear black (it doesn’t show coffee spills), and my hair is tousled when I do the work, and just a mess when I don’t. But I smile a lot, and I often look tired.

Disappointing, isn’t it? But I tell you this to prepare you for The Really Ugly Truth.

To preface, let me explain that in high school I hated homework, even essays. I loved writing poetry in little books, and journaling, and writing stories, but the writing I had to do just didn’t turn me on. The words stuck in my gullet. I didn’t know what to write, and what I did write felt wrong. I got sleepy. I got restless. All at the same time.

The writing I wanted to do was all different. When I wrote poetry and short stories, I felt like a flame blazed inside and the words fell like sparks from my pen and smoldered, spreading their energy across the paper in glowing lines that smoked like incense.

In other words, the kind of writing I wanted to do for the rest of my life was the kind that felt good, and homework was not that kind.

The Really Ugly Truth: Once you are a writer, you are supposed to write. And that’s homework.

To illustrate, let me tell you about the last blog post I wrote for Novel Matters.

I didn’t wait till the last minute. A day or two before, I’d done the research and written an outline, leaving just the composing, and that would be easy. My schedule was busy that week, but there would be hours of time Sunday night before the post was due on Monday.

But Sunday night, on a whim, I took my mother to see “The Kings Speech.” Then we had a late dinner. I got home later than I’d planned, at about 9:30. No worries. The blog post would take an hour or less, and then I would go to bed.

But the minute I sat down to write, my body went limp and my mind went blank. The busy week had done me in. I was exhausted.

Just look at the outline, I told myself. Write one sentence at a time, and you’ll be done… in an hour and a half. In bed by eleven.

My two black kittens, three months old, were asleep on the footstool I keep under my desk. I like it when they sleep there, because they are out of the way but within arms reach, so I can pet them between thoughts. Don’t all writers have cats? These guys know what to do. Generally.

This particular evening however, when I began to write, the kittens began to tussle, and this made the footstool rock on my uneven floor, and that made an irritating noise. Exhausted writers really hate irritating noises (not to mention cat-scratches on the legs), so I picked the kittens up, gave them a light toss and told them to tussle someplace else.

But the tussle had been just a warm-up, and now their jets were hot, and they began to bounce off the walls. That’s not a cliche – well it is, but it’s also the literal truth. They ran back and forth in my office like they were on South American catnip, the good stuff. At one point I actually saw a cat run vertically up my bookshelf, clawing like it was El Capitan, knocking things over as he went, before he crashed to the floor, spun and ran the other direction.

Me? I scolded, yelled, squirted them with my squirt bottle. But I didn’t write, at least not much.

Finally, at about 2:30 in the morning, they began to calm down. I looked at the progress I’d made on the post to that point, and realized I was almost done. Just finish up and post it, I told myself. In bed by 3:00.

And then my computer blinked off. My work was lost. The blog post was still due Monday morning. And it was Monday morning.

I looked down, and there a kitten sat sweetly beside me, his face all wide-eyed innocence, his foot on the surge protector’s button. I’d had times like this. In high school.

The Ugly Truth is that being a writer feels like having homework forever. But that leads me to the beautiful truth, and that is, it doesn’t matter. The post got finished, and no one noticed I’d written it in a state of numbed exhaustion. In fact, it sparked a great discussion. I’m still catching up on sleep, but I will catch up.

And that leads me to The Really Beautiful Truth: Everything I have ever done has felt ugly in the middle. Too hard, too tiring. I wasn’t good enough, and it wasn’t going to end well.

Only it did end well.

I felt that way in the middle of raising my sons. I don’t know how they grew up to be so wonderful.

I felt that way when I endured trials – badly. I don’t know why my life is so good today.

I felt that way when I wrote my novels. I don’t know why people I don’t know send me emails to say how much my books mean to them.

Except I think I do know. I think it has something to do with the loaves and fishes story. I bring my sorry sat-on bag lunch full of nothing, and the Lord makes SOMETHING of it.

I recently read something a man named Adel Bestavros once said:

Patience with others is Love.
Patience with self is Hope.
Patience with God is Faith.

Isn’t that good? Whatever you face today, I hope you’ll be patient. Things are better than you think.

About Ariel Lawhon

Ariel Lawhon is the co-founder of She Reads, novelist, blogger, and life-long reader. She lives in Texas with her husband and four young sons (aka The Wild Rumpus). Ariel believes that Story is the shortest distance to the human heart.

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