My lucky socks.
Okay, I don't actually have lucky socks. But I do have other weird little quirks, especially when it comes to anything relating to writing. We were out at our new house this weekend. And we could finally climb upstairs (stairs were just installed) to see the bedrooms, one of which is going to be my writing room. I love the one I have now, at my current house. It's just the right size, I finally have all the furniture in the right place (I moved my desk no less than three times in the first year we lived there) and it, the room, faces west. West is a requirement for me. The last two rooms that I've written in have faced west to some extent, so that the afternoon sun shines in. This is necessary, otherwise it feels all depressing in there in the evening/afternoon and I don't want to go in there for anything. And if you're a writer, you know that sometimes the hardest thing to do is to convince yourself to go in and sit down and write, even though you're practically crawling out of your skin with the need to do it. I actually get crabby when I don't get time or enough time to write. Seriously. Ask my husband. If he still will speak of it : )

So, now, facing the prospect of a new writing environment, I'm a little tense. A few months ago when we picked this house model and the lot, I actually made the sales rep figure out which side of the house the garage would be on before we told her we would take it because I had to know if there would be a room that faced west that I could have for my writing room. I know it's completely bizarre. But you'll find as you do this, that whatever you can do to make it easier on yourself to write, you'll do it. And you'll do it, no matter how weird it makes you seem.

Other things that are weird but that I have found helpful:
1. Having a room just devoted to writing (or sculpting or whatever it is you're doing that requires that extra bit of effort).
2. No one is allowed to touch my computer. For any reason. Except when I'm in dire need of technical assistance. But just because someone else in my house wants to look up fantasy football scores, that doesn't count! It has something to do with knowing that everything will be the way I left it. It also has something to do with avoiding procrastination. Procrastination is, again, another tried and true system for avoiding writing. Writers will do anything to avoid writing--I don't know why, but it's true. That's why I don't use my computer for anything except for stuff related to writing. I make it difficult for myself to log on to the web (have to drag a huge phone cord from across the hall) just so I won't lose myself in "research." So I can't be thinking of the computer as a tool to check fantasy football scores online or ordering movie tickets--it has to be for writing.
3. Never talk about current projects, except in the vaguest of necessary terms. A couple reasons for this one. First, I've found that by the time I've described the story enough for someone to get why I'm so excited about it, all desire to tell the story has actually disappeared. Because in describing it, I've actually told it to some extent and it no longer inhabits my brain in the potential form. And second, because no matter how good-hearted people are, they will want to take part or influence what you're doing. You can be telling them, "and then this happens and Bob jumps off the bridge..." And they interrupt with excitement, "And he dies, right?" And then suddenly, all you can picture is your hero dead in the water, when originally he was supposed to land in a passing speedboat. And your friend isn't trying to make things difficult, they're just trying to participate in the conversation, which is normal. But writers, at least most of the time, are anything but normal. : )

And this influencing can also be done with an intentionally negative bent. In other words, you tell someone you're writing a story about XYZ and they look at you and say, "That's an interesting idea" when clearly they don't think so. Or, "Didn't ABC already do a movie of the week on that?" It doesn't even have to be someone slamming you intentionally. But most people already think of you in a certain way and telling them what you're doing might make them think of you in a new way, which might not be comfortable. So,their instinct is to either pat you on the head with a meaningless (and clearly so) "that's nice" or a doubting comment clevely disguised as constructive criticism "Wow, a book, that's really hard. Do you think you can do that? I mean, that's a lot of pages. I sure wouldn't want to commit to doing something like that. And remember, you were the one who had trouble writing ten page papers in college." And writers enough, as you probably already know, are neurotic enough as it is! They don't need any help talking themselves out of a project.

So, I'm wondering are there other rituals/quirks that other people do? Not necessarily in writing. I know one person who had to use the same pencil/pen in studying for an exam as when taking the exam because the pencil/pen had already been over the answers. It's a mental thing, but I actually tried it once and I think it did help me relax, which is usually a key to performing better on a test.

Any thoughts...send me an email: sklemstein@msn.com
Talk to you tomorrow.