There’s this pesky parasite in my fingertips called the Internal Editor. He doesn’t like to let me free-write. He insists upon a certain measure of Quality — unless I’m typing in Gmail Chat — and he doesn’t care that Quality slows me down whether she’s just sprinkling herself on my work, or outright smothering it.

I’m considering chopping off my fingers just for the sake of getting rid of the Internal Editor. He’s THAT bad.

I hear typing! Real, live, FAST typing. Productive typing. The kind of click click clicks that are going somewhere, and ain’t stopping for no one, no how.

That’s so exciting!

It’d be more exciting if it were my typing, though. See, I’m a writer. I’m supposed to write. But I don’t. Instead I read Dooce, and I play with my puppy, and I check my email just in case something new has come in the past 30 seconds. (Nope, still nothing.) I do pretty much everything except write. Which I think means I’m a pretty bad writer.

My boyfriend, on the other hand, is writing typing. He won’t let me say he’s writing, because he’s not a writer. He published this book once, but that doesn’t count. That was a true story. (Really? I convinced someone not to jump off a roof? I don’t remember that…)

“What are you, then?” I ask him.

“What do you mean?”

“You published a book, but you say you’re not a writer. So what are you?”

He thinks for a moment. “I’m an author,” he finally answers.

Ah, it all makes sense now.

… o_O

Continue reading →