Wait for it . . .

Anticipation is a tricky thing. While waiting for the gun to sound the start of a track race, it creeps up from your toes, through your leg muscles, which flex and ache with it, it runs through your fingers and down your back, it pulses through your heart making it skip, and finally it curls itself in the pit of your stomach. And you wait. And it waits. And sometimes, you just can’t wait anymore. Without willing your body to go, it moves forward. The toes dig in, the legs release and before you know it you’re running. Whistles blow, shouts pound you from every side, but you’re off and finding the will inside to stop, is sometimes impossible. False start.

The thing about a false start in a race is that once there is one, you’re guaranteed another and another and another. Anticipation is contagious. It overflows and then refills quickly. So once you stop running and come back to the starting line, chances are someone is going to make another false start right after yours (or you could make yet another false start - it happens).

Thank goodness writing isn’t like running in a track meet. In the first place, I always got queasy before a meet. Also, the shorts were too short and the colors were all wrong for me. Kelly green and baby blue, seriously? Although the green sweat suits did make for fun vegetable imitations (broccoli, green beans, three peas in a pod). But most of all, it was the fear of giving in to that anticipation and making a false start that made me despise track meet days more than any others. If anything, I was always just a little slow to start because I was too terrified to put my foot out there before I was given permission by the sound of the starting gun.

But writing is full of false starts. Sometimes you listen to the wrong character and end up boring yourself silly. Sometimes you stick people in the wrong places and find yourself lost. A lot of times you just end up down a blocked passageway and the only thing to do is go back to the starting line knowing full well, you will probably end up in this same dark alleyway a few more times before you get it right.

At times the false start can be frustrating. Who am I kidding? The false start can make you want to throw your computer under a bus and take up basket weaving. I do love baskets. So useful and aesthetically pleasing, how could I go wrong? But if you pay attention on the way back to the starting line, you may just learn a few things about your characters, your story, your computer, your passion and even the world around you. Because false starts are really a big part of life and the best thing is that you probably won’t get left behind because you make a few. The writing, the project your boss is waiting for, the laundry, the unfinished baby books, the future will all wait for you to find your way back to the starting line and try again.

On your mark, get set . . .

Photo by David Ritter, Phoenix, Arizona