My Scary Boss
As a “self-employed” writer, I sometimes miss the structure of patient appointments and the deadlines imposed by a supervisor.
Audiology suited me because I am a detail-oriented person. The process of putting all those X’s and O’s onto graphs and the word recognition scores in their little boxes was satisfying. Hearing aids needed programming, cochlear implants needed mapping – all while the next patient sat outside in the waiting room. Sometimes it was too much pressure and I hated that. But most of the time, it was a good match. The things I enjoyed most and my sharpest skills were the same things that made a good audiologist.
My current life as a writer is about as different as it can get. For one thing, I must learn to be self-motivated. When I’m having trouble writing a scene, the next one isn’t sitting out in the waiting room. I can tell myself, “Today I’m going to write 500 words.” Or “I’m going to finish this chapter.” But no one notices if I don’t follow through and no one pats me on the head when I do.
The meticulousness that was so helpful as an audiologist now makes drafting a new book more difficult. Anne Lamott famously advised writers to write a “shitty first draft” then go back and fix it. In other words, get your creative ideas on the page and worry about sentence structure and background research later. But it’s hard to make myself do it that way.
For instance, recently, I needed to find out a simple bit of information for a scene I was working on. “How big are pacific harbor seals?” Two hours later, I was still reading all about seals! I learned some fascinating stuff but had zero words to show for the time I spent.
This morning I decided to make myself some fresh coffee. When I got into the kitchen, the coffeemaker needed to be thoroughly cleaned and descaled first. That led to reorganizing the cleaning supplies. Of course, my cup of coffee called for a snack…and…. you get the idea.
When I get distracted as I did this morning, there is no one around to tell me to get my butt back in the chair. Important online research is easy to rationalize in the moment. And a shiny clean coffee maker is immediately satisfying unlike a few shitty pages.
Apparently, I need a big scary boss looking over my shoulder. I considered printing a picture of a monster and posting it on the wall over my desk. But shouldn’t I be able to motivate myself? Grrrrrr! The “future me” is threatening to give me a really bad performance review. Maybe I should take a picture of myself growling and post that over my desk? What do you think?
