Snark Comes to Spark by Ellen Notbohm

As I wake this morning after another night of badly broken sleep, I see my pencils sitting there on the nightstand in the half-light, their points dulled from the last time I used them. Which was—when? My weary thought is, I can’t write this morning. My pencils are dull.

My pencils are pointless, literally and figuratively.

The resistance to writing, the fear of having nothing to say, the fear of writing poorly—it’s common to many writers who’re between inspirations.

How’s that for a euphemism for writer’s block? “Between inspirations.”

To write from inspiration can feel providential, heaven-sent. It is life-affirming. It’s a gift. I’ve had it in abundance, for which I’m depthlessly grateful. Some writers write only when inspired, content and able to wait for that inspiration. Nothing wrong with that. Happy for ’em.

Me, I’m able to hit the page ahead of the sun most days, energized by the pre-dawn darkness and its blank slate of possibilities. But then will come a stretch when I’m dismayed to find that my ability to kindle that spark of inspiration seems to be aging right along with the rest of me. If I don’t force myself to walk across the house to sharpen my pencils, literally and metaphorically, my writer’s muscle and mind will become as flabby and blue as my “real” muscles and mind. Nothing inherently wrong with that either, as long as I acknowledge it for what it is—a choice.

By getting up each morning, traversing the house to sharpen my pencils and pushing those pencils across the page, I make the choice to strike the flint, keep using the muscle, even if only for the sake of using the muscle. I make the choice not to write anguished screes about losing my mojo, my jones, my hoodoo.

I make the choice to embrace author Isabel Allende’s famous advice: “Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.”

When Isabel isn’t enough, when I need a firmer kick to the keister, I turn to artist Chuck Close: “Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work. All the best ideas come out of the process, out of the work itself.”

A favorite advice post of mine offers what the columnist calls a “snarky answer” to the so-called writer’s block lament. To some of our self-inflicted literary angst, the answer should be: “So?” Followed by a scenario that either will or won’t happen.

Maybe I’ll never write another book.

So?

Not everything I write is scintillating and publishable.

So?

I send my work into the world where publishers and editors will respond to my submissions with what feels like a fusillade of declines.

So?

So, I make the choice to see my pencils as dull, but not pointless. Who inspires me? I inspire me. Snark comes to spark. I choose to be a pencil pusher. To get the lead out.

I show up.

—

Ellen Notbohm’s work touches millions in more than twenty-five languages. She is author of the award-winning novel The River by Starlight and the nonfiction classic Ten Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew, an evergreen best-seller now in its 20th year. Ellen’s short works appear in numerous literary journals, magazines, and anthologies in the US and abroad. Her books and short fiction and creative nonfiction have won more than 40 awards worldwide.

THE RIVER BY STARLIGHT

For fans of Paulette Jiles and Marisa de los Santos

Winner of the Sarton Women’s Book Award and the Western Writers of America Spur Award

Annie Rushton leaves behind an unsettling past to join her brother on his Montana homestead and make a determined fresh start. There, sparks fly when she tangles with Adam Fielding, a visionary businessman-farmer determined to make his own way and answer to no one. Neither is looking for a partner, but they give in to their undeniable chemistry.

Annie and Adam’s marriage brims with astounding success and unanticipated passion, but their dream of having a child eludes them as a mysterious illness of mind and body plagues Annie’s pregnancies. Amidst deepening economic adversity, natural disaster, and the onset of world war, their personal struggles collide with the societal mores of the day. Annie’s shattering periods of black depression and violent outbursts exact a terrible price. The life the Fieldings have forged begins to unravel, and the only path ahead leads to unthinkable loss.

Based on true events, this sweeping novel weaves a century-old story, timeless in its telling of love, heartbreak, healing, and redemption embodied in one woman’s tenacious quest for control over her own destiny in the face of devastating misfortune and social injustice.

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