By Jo Scott-Coe
FROM: Riverside Press-Enterprise

There’s a common myth that “real” writers feel like writing all the time. Sometimes we feed the myth by over-explaining gaps in our creative activities or output. Sharing how writing works or doesn’t work can be fascinating. For me, this can also be a counterpart to anxious impulses: Addressing anticipated critics — real or imagined — or playing out arguments on an internal loop after someone has voluntold me what they think I should be creating.

But being a writer is not just the work and rework, the hustle and the sell. It’s more than the conversation, competition, and even the profound connectivity and celebration that can come with what we do. Sometimes it’s about everything except the typing and printing, uploading and emailing. It’s washing dishes and scooping the cat box, getting dressed for a job that thankfully pays the bills, and hoping I still have energy to exercise at the end of the day. It means sharing a meme or GIF with family members or friends on a text thread during a day that required no literary allusions, illusions, or even complete sentences in order to matter.

Here are some of my low-key sources of joy in that ordinariness.

Today: That easy give in the stem when the first lime of the season agreed to leave the tree. My big cast iron skillet, nothing fancy: I purchased it weeks before the pandemic lockdown. Planning meals around it (shepherd’s pie? mustard chicken thighs and potatoes?), cooking with it, using mismatched hot pads to carry it from oven to table, all make me want to do a little jig in the dining room. Wiping the skillet clean with oil and a paper towel? Bliss. Read Rest of Article Here