“The art of writing
is the art of applying
the seat of the pants
to the seat of the chair.”
–Mary Heaton Vorse
Today I went to my neighborhood café to work on chapter 6 of the mystery series. The café is cozy and warm and has a sign that reads: “If you use Starbucks lingo, we’ll be forced to charge you Starbucks prices”.
I love my neighborhood café and I love that the owner knows my name. It’s my own personal “Cheers” (if “Cheers” wasn’t just another canceled TV show). What I don’t love about my neighborhood café is their chairs.
Their chairs are horrible: dark green plastic with low, uncomfortable, slatted seats. You can’t write in those chairs for more than forty minutes at a time without your butt going numb as a Klondike bar. You sit in them, notebook in lap, jiggling unsteadily, and you get what my grandmother used to call the shpilkes.
Roughly translated from the Yiddish, shpilkes (pronounced SH-PILL-KEYS) means “restless energy.”
Your eyes slowly wander away from the page. You start contemplating the true nature of the universe while simultaneously trying to decide if you really need to pick up that package of Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Chunk cookies (Pepperidge Farm remembers and so does your bathroom scale).
I’ve always thought that if I had a more comfortable chair, I could sit for hours and hours and write that epic romance I’ve been mulling over (“Love in the Time of Baklava”) – without ever getting the shpilkes.
Regardless, I walked into my neighborhood café, armed with chapter 6, ready to order my usual coffee and a muffin.
And that’s when I saw them.
New café chairs!
I almost wept.
The new chairs were solid oak with sturdy legs and plush seats that promised to cradle the fanny like a gentle mama cradling her beloved baby. Trembling with anticipation, I eased myself onto the soft velvety cushiness.
(Oh, yeah…)
I whipped out chapter 6, waiting for the magic of creativity to begin. I worked for forty minutes non-stop and it was great. Ideas were flowing, characters were clicking, and on top of that, the muffin was unusually moist. I have never been so focused (and not just on the muffin)!
The book would be finished in record time!
Then it happened.
The shpilkes.
I didn’t know what was going on at first. The shpilkes manifested itself as a quick tapping of the right foot and panic in the left hemisphere of the brain where the fingers of my left hand started playing air-piano and my mind raced from world hunger to the true meaning of dental floss.
The shpilkes? But how could it be? I was no longer forced into restlessness by an aching lower back and wobbly plastic legs, I was sitting on the Porsche GT3 of chairs! So why did I need to get up? After forty minutes?
I tried to force myself to sit and write at least another ten minutes. Nothing.
I left my neighborhood café and took a long, sad walk to Washington Square Park. Pretty soon, invigorated by the unseasonably mild, globally warmed air, I sat down on a bench and scribbled away on chapter 6…this time for forty-five minutes!
Then, of course, it was time to get up as the shplikes struck again.
I’m slowly learning to respect the shpilkes as part of my writing process. After all, to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to sit, and a time to stand, and a time to pick up Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Chunk cookies.
Gotta go…
is the art of applying
the seat of the pants
to the seat of the chair.”
–Mary Heaton Vorse
Today I went to my neighborhood café to work on chapter 6 of the mystery series. The café is cozy and warm and has a sign that reads: “If you use Starbucks lingo, we’ll be forced to charge you Starbucks prices”.
I love my neighborhood café and I love that the owner knows my name. It’s my own personal “Cheers” (if “Cheers” wasn’t just another canceled TV show). What I don’t love about my neighborhood café is their chairs.
Their chairs are horrible: dark green plastic with low, uncomfortable, slatted seats. You can’t write in those chairs for more than forty minutes at a time without your butt going numb as a Klondike bar. You sit in them, notebook in lap, jiggling unsteadily, and you get what my grandmother used to call the shpilkes.
Roughly translated from the Yiddish, shpilkes (pronounced SH-PILL-KEYS) means “restless energy.”
Your eyes slowly wander away from the page. You start contemplating the true nature of the universe while simultaneously trying to decide if you really need to pick up that package of Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Chunk cookies (Pepperidge Farm remembers and so does your bathroom scale).
I’ve always thought that if I had a more comfortable chair, I could sit for hours and hours and write that epic romance I’ve been mulling over (“Love in the Time of Baklava”) – without ever getting the shpilkes.
Regardless, I walked into my neighborhood café, armed with chapter 6, ready to order my usual coffee and a muffin.
And that’s when I saw them.
New café chairs!
I almost wept.
The new chairs were solid oak with sturdy legs and plush seats that promised to cradle the fanny like a gentle mama cradling her beloved baby. Trembling with anticipation, I eased myself onto the soft velvety cushiness.
(Oh, yeah…)
I whipped out chapter 6, waiting for the magic of creativity to begin. I worked for forty minutes non-stop and it was great. Ideas were flowing, characters were clicking, and on top of that, the muffin was unusually moist. I have never been so focused (and not just on the muffin)!
The book would be finished in record time!
Then it happened.
The shpilkes.
I didn’t know what was going on at first. The shpilkes manifested itself as a quick tapping of the right foot and panic in the left hemisphere of the brain where the fingers of my left hand started playing air-piano and my mind raced from world hunger to the true meaning of dental floss.
The shpilkes? But how could it be? I was no longer forced into restlessness by an aching lower back and wobbly plastic legs, I was sitting on the Porsche GT3 of chairs! So why did I need to get up? After forty minutes?
I tried to force myself to sit and write at least another ten minutes. Nothing.
I left my neighborhood café and took a long, sad walk to Washington Square Park. Pretty soon, invigorated by the unseasonably mild, globally warmed air, I sat down on a bench and scribbled away on chapter 6…this time for forty-five minutes!
Then, of course, it was time to get up as the shplikes struck again.
I’m slowly learning to respect the shpilkes as part of my writing process. After all, to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted, a time to sit, and a time to stand, and a time to pick up Pepperidge Farm Chocolate Chunk cookies.
Gotta go…
