Coupon Bug…

Addiction is sometimes a normal ‘ish’ behavior taken to frightening extremes. For example…working out vs. steroid injection. Physical fitness- good;  roid rage- bad. And often it’s times of hardship and stress that set typical reactions off past normal and into a 12 step program.

This is my story…

For me, it all started with the sky rocketing costs of just about everything and the fear that my family’s food budget was going to send us into bankruptcy*. With milk at $3.86 a gallon? Could we keep the house and feed the kids?**

Then a friend said to me, “Look at all the groceries I got for $50.00 just by couponing!”

The wheels turned. I thought back to my glory days as a newlywed and my grocery budget was $15 a week. I knew those days were long gone, but I thought, maybe, just maybe, I could get this budget under $200. I did it! Then I wanted it under $180, then $150…then the next thing I know I’m out trolling gas stations in my PJ’s at 1:00 am Monday morning buying up extra Sunday papers. And I admit, with a whole lotta shame, I once even scouted the ER for papers abandoned during tragedy just for the magical cents off little rectangles.

I could pretend this behavior was normal, but I can’t deny…my new addiction is scaring my kids. I overheard one whisper to another, “Did Dad get fired? There’s Captain Crunch in the cupboard.”

“Are you sure it’s not Admiral Crunch?”

“No, look for yourself. It’s the real thing. Do you think mom got food stamps?”

Now, I have to ask myself…have I been fair to them? Fair to a group of boys who have been raised from toddlerhood to expect ‘like Fruit Loops’ and ‘just as good as Cocoa Puffs’? Are they prepared to suddenly be faced with the real thing?

I just don’t know…I will have to think on it…but not today…it’s Monday, time to organize my Sunday cache and execute The List.

*a bit of exaggeration, but go with it, it’s funnier this way

**once again, an exaggeration, please mother, don’t be frightened

I have never suffered from writer’s block. I’m usually afflicted with writer’s vomit… a condition where ideas and words come in such profusion that my fingers can barely keep pace with my brain. Sounds great, but truly, the end result is often a mess of regurgitation that only a dog (or the most loyal sort of reader) finds interesting. But still the words come.

Till now. For the entire summer I drew a blank. A complete and total blank.

I could blame the crowd of kids in my house who make even getting to the computer a wicked obstacle course. But that’s lame…I have been known to do chapter outlines on the backs of grocery slips. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. You don’t have to be plugged in to plug away.

I could blame my mom. The poor soul who gave birth to me and encouraged me my whole life to create and  dream…the lady who bought me my first type writer at a flea market when I was ten. She’s in the middle of a health overhaul and like any high mile vehicle, it takes a lot of work to make her road worthy.  But that would be unfair, cause truly….what else is there to do in a waiting room? The writing time is there.

I could blame the SIMS….that wonderful make believe world where not only is my virtual house cleaned by a maid, but I have a pool in my yard and I am an accomplished (and skinny) writer.  Ah, how I love fantasy land…

But truly honestly, when my social worker self analyzes the situation, I find a simple, brain locking question from my son at the root. “Mom, what will you do when you can’t just write for fun? When it’s a job with deadlines and critics and stuff?”

Hmm…thanks Debbie Downer.

But he’s right.

This is what I do for fun. It’s my entertainment when the kids won’t let me have a turn on the SIMs. What WOULD I do if it was work?

Then, as if on cue, an email arrives from an editor. It was a rejection (no surprise), but it contained that very precious ounce of feedback writer’s lust after. In three sentences she sent my brain into a tail spin…”Writing is good, story is good, but not break in novel material. Voice doesn’t appear until midway in chapter one and that’s too late. Voice is stronger in the blog and needs to be brought to the novel.”

Add sigh here. Then three months later an epiphany.

The opening of that novel was work. I fussed over every word, comma, and paragraph.  The blog is goof off time; the blog is fun.

So, maybe, just maybe, out of the mouths of babes comes my truth. Writing as WORK will never work. At least not for me.  I will write for the joy. It is my therapy, my comfort, and my solace. And one day if it sells…yippee…if it doesn’t….que sera sera.