DEALS WE MAKE WITH OURSELVES AS WRITERS

Write 5,000 words today and you can binge-watch the rest of the first season of
Mr. Robot. 
Write 4,000 words today and you can go to Starbucks for a
chai tea latte, grande, and re-read what you wrote. Live the writer���s life. 
Write 3,000 words today���write hard and fast and then off to
the yoga relaxation class where you will ultimately lie on a mat and do nothing. 
Write 2,000 words today and turn off the computer, leave it
off for the rest of the day, free yourself from the shackles of social media
and typing like one possessed. Write 2,000 words and go get your nails done by the
girl from Vietnam who scowls at your hands, looking at them intensely,
wondering what she should do with them. The nails are bitten down to the skin, bleeding
at her touch. All you really want is for her to hold your hands in the folds of
her own cool bones.  
Write 1,000 words today and you can read the rest of
Franzen���s PURITY. You don���t know if this is a reward or not, you think not.
Write 1,000 words and you can go back to library and find new books, ones that
you will enjoy reading.  
Open your novel and write 500 words this morning, you can do
this. You will know you made an effort. You will be giving the world what?
Ideas? Words. More words. Maybe some will make sense, maybe none will. You
don���t know what else means anything to you anymore. So, you write. Make a deal
with yourself: 5,000. You can do it. 5,000 words.
--Caroline