What Adelaide's Lament Would Look Like If She Had Been a Writer

by Kari Diane Pike

What Adelaide's Lament Would Look Like If She Had Been a Writer

(adapted from the lyrics to "Adelaide's Lament" by Frank Loesser [Guys and Dolls])

The average [wanna be author]
Basically insecure
Due to some long frustration may react
React?
With psychosomatic symptoms
Difficult to endure
Affecting the upper respiratory tract
Achoo

In other words
Just from waiting around
For [word her book has been sold]
A [writer] can develop a cold

You can spray her wherever you figure
The streptococci lurk
You can give her a shot
For whatever she's got
But it just won't work
If she's tired of getting [rejections]
From [her publisher]
A person
Can develop a cold

The [writer remaining unpublished], uh
Just in the legal sense, ahh
Shows a neurotic tendency
See note
Where's note? Uh

Chronic organic syndromes
Toxic and hypertense
Involving the eye,
The ear and the nose and throat
Oh, that's very interesting

In other words
Just from worrying
Whether [she'll ever get published

A writer

Can develop a cold]

It seems that every time I put my BIC HOK TAM (see Marsha Ward's earlier post), I come down with a cold. I've had some interesting health challenges the past couple of years, but they were all related to drug allergies and doctors trying to fix things that weren't broken. 

I rarely get colds. Until this year. And the harder I try to get my book written, the more I end up in a doctor office. I realize that there is little to no correlation or causation between these two things. I just think it's interesting that they have occurred together. Oh well. At least these experiences give me something to write about. 

Oh, and talk about something to write about - I woke up yesterday morning and found a notification in my inbox about a flight dear hubby purchased for me: round trip to London from Phoenix (the end of May) with two of our daughters. We get to spend 10 days temple hopping in Europe. I am beyond excited. 

New Flash! There's more:  I just got the best text ever from our youngest daughter and her husband: "We have a baby!" So tomorrow morning I'll be heading north to Utah to meet our newest granddaughter. Squeee! 

Life is magnificent. 

Now if I can just get rid of this chronic organic syndrome. Perhaps the cure is to finish the book.

Hugs~

BIC-HOK-TAM

By Marsha Ward @MarshaWard

BIC-HOK-TAM?*

What? Is she kidding? Isn’t that HoHoKam for “go to sleep right now or the evil raiders will get you”?

Not really. BIC-HOK-TAM stands for “Butt in chair-hands on keyboard-typing away madly”. It’s what every writer needs to learn to do—every writing day.

Notice I said every writing day. This also might be “every writing moment.” I know some of us can’t write seven days a week like some full-time novelists do. As a women writer, I do have other commitments. Some women writers have families who need some measure of care. However, I encourage all writers to write in what time you can make available for writing.

Writers find the time to write in a variety of ways. We cut out watching that favorite television program. We vacuum twice a week instead of five times (or teach our children to do that job). We stop going to every baby shower or lunch date. Maybe we use comforters on the beds instead of making tight hospital corners each morning (again, why aren’t the kiddos making their own beds?). Perhaps we eat Cheerios for dinner a few nights a week instead of cooking gourmet meals.

Whatever sacrifice we (and our families) make gains us a few more minutes to write. A few more minutes to practice BIC-HOK-TAM!

Okay, we have a few minutes before we have to pick up Tabitha from kindergarten. How do we do BIC-HOK-TAM?

We sit down (BIC), put our hands on the computer keyboard (HOK), and start typing whatever comes into our minds, if we don’t have anything already flowing (TAM). Okay, so it’s a letter to our Aunt Katie on how fun it was to play in the snow at her house on Thanksgiving Day, 1983, or a grocery list, or a journal entry that can touch our family members many years down the road.

Maybe it’s just pure hoop-di-doo and garbage, but we’re WRITING, and soon, our minds will open up and we’ll start to write something we need to share, maybe a poem, an essay, a short story, a character sketch or a novel chapter. Maybe we’ll write a magazine article entitled “10 Ways to Make Time for Writing,” or another chapter in our non-fiction book. The point is to begin, and that’s where BIC-HOK-TAM comes in handy.

Use BIC-HOK-TAM as often as you can, to write and get closer to your writing goal.
~~~

*This blog post first appeared on The Ink Ladies Blog on July 26, 2007.