Writing is a sacred calling--but so are gardening, dentistry, and plumbing, so don't put on airs.

- Garrison Keillor

The first time I ever worked on a writing project for months and months straight was when I was nine. My fourth-grade class was assigned to write individual novels, and I seized the opportunity to write and illustrate a very nine-year-old-girl tome entitled The Mystery of the Mermaid. At the end of the semester, we had a class-wide contest with awards for everybody, and I sat there while the awards ceremony went on and on and my name wasn't called. My mother had come, and I was sorry I had wasted her time. Finally, the teacher (who I hated) called my name last, and it turned out I had won the class Newberry Award for best book. The prize was a paperback copy of A Wrinkle In Time.

None of my subsequent work has attained the dizzying aclaim of The Mystery of the Mermaid, but I have written very consistently in the twenty years since. Long projects (high school yearbooks, corporate things that went on for-freaking-ever, semester-long projects), and short stuff that was finished in days or weeks. Fairly early on, I adopted the notion that writing is like laying pipe, or driving a truck. (Like Mike says, We got a load to run. Let's move it some.) It ain't art, it's a job, and on good days it's a craft. It just happens to be one of the only things I have an aptitude for.

In the twenty years that I've been writing, I have never had writer's block. Sure, there have been afternoons when I said the hell with it and went off to do something else. Once in a while this would go on for a couple of days, but for years now I've made a point of working consistently on the project at hand and finishing a close-to-final draft early so it could sit awhile before that last rewrite. I had heard of epic writer's block, but I had no concept of it because there has never been a lengthy stretch of time when I could not write. Until this time, which started somewhere around December 9. I finished my last paper of the semester, turned in my PhD apps, and have hardly written anything since except blog entries.

I have been "working" on the thesis, which means tacking together bits of previously-written research. Mostly, though, the house is eerily clean and I have had lots of lunches with friends. I have spent time sitting in front of the computer, but not much has happened while I've been there. Sentences, maybe a paragraph. I have no idea what the problem has been. Okay, that's a lie, I do know what it was - the anxiety of waiting to hear back from doctoral programs, then the anxiety of actually hearing back and having to make a decision. (Most of you know we were accepted to all three programs we applied to. I know, I know: cry me a river. But still, we were unprepared to make the decision because we assumed it would be made for us.) A couple of days ago, it finally occurred to me that I am tired of worrying about this. We're visiting two of the schools in March, and I'm sure that the right choice will be made apparent. Until then, I am done thinking about it.

And yesterday, suddenly I could write again. I ripped through a good chunk of Chapter Two, and I'm hoping to wrap it up shortly, send it to my chair, and move on to the next chapter. It's like a good gush of WD-40 has been applied to the gears in my head, and now things are running again. I'm amazed that there's such a physical change that goes with this - my muscles have untensed, my chest feels unblocked. I'm certain I can get this thing hammered out and finished now. (Assuming I haven't jinxed it by writing this.)