Just Start
Another one of our faculty members, the biographer Neil Gabler, refers to what he calls “Gabler’s Law”: First, you just sit there.
I love this, since I can come up with a thousand excuses as to why I can’t yet sit down to write – my favorites being, “I’m not ready,” “I don’t have an idea yet,” and “I’m still stewing.”
Recently I’ve been experimenting with a law of my own: Just start.
Since I’ve incorporated this law, an amazing pattern has begun to emerge with respect to these writing assignments. It generally goes like this:
Day 1 – “OK, I’ve got the assignment for this week. It seems do-able.”
Day 2 – “What was I thinking? This assignment is the hardest yet! Ack. I’ll think about it tomorrow.”
Day 3: “I might have an idea. I’ll let it stew a bit.”
Day 4: “It’s a terrible idea. Never mind. Help!”
Day 4: “This is impossible. It’s actually out of the question. I don’t have a single idea!”
Day 5: “This may be the week where I have to call in sick. Is there any valid excuse I can come up with for not doing the assignment this week?
Day 6: “God, class is tomorrow. Just sit there and begin – something, anything!”
Day 7: “What time is class?”
What this has taught me is that I can afford to be patient while all those little gremlins in my head cycle through their strange but apparently necessary routine. But then, if I just sit there and START – just put my fingers to the keyboard and begin, something, anything – stuff begins to happen. It doesn’t matter where I start, just that I do. And of course it’s all about editing – but the miracle is, once I start, I have something to edit, and once I edit, I (usually) have something to present.