Wake Up Call

By Josh Corman

Follow me on Twitter @JoshACorman

My wife has lost almost 15 pounds in the last the last three weeks. She is not, however, on a diet. Instead of Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig or Nutrisystem, each which presents its own solutions for the manifold problems of those looking to do everything from shed a few holiday pounds to totally remake their bodies, Sara’s just eating a modest intake of calories and eating foods that are simply better for her. Things like whole-wheat pasta, Crystal Light instead of soft drinks, and lean ground turkey instead of ground beef. She calls it a “lifestyle change.”

As she bloody well should. See, I could avoid a diet. Sara could do her thing, and I could do mine. But a lifestyle change? I haven’t been able to duck that one. Now, that isn’t to say that I control my portions as well as Sara has, nor is it to say that I don’t occasionally do my own thing for dinner while Sara makes a healthier choice. Fault me, insult me, call me unsupportive if you like, but bacon and I have been together much longer than my wife and I, and that relationship is proving difficult to end. But I’m trying. I’ve eaten turkey burgers and whole wheat lemon chicken pasta and lightly seasoned baked fish for dinner, where before, it would have been cheese-smothered beef tacos, spaghetti with heaps of Italian sausage, and fried chicken.

In between my lamentations, though, I noticed how excited Sara was at the results of her choice to soldier on through the sometimes-less-than-appetizing moments. Sara is making real progress toward her goal, she looks great, and after just a few weeks, I don’t think I could convince her into even one night of Chinese food. She’s seen the Promised Land, and it ain’t filled with General Tso’s chicken.

Anyway, her resolute embrace of these challenging gustatory alterations inspired me. Sara’s choices have not been easy to make, but they have been immensely rewarding. Taking the long view (incredibly difficult when cheeseburgers and pizza are involved) has produced authentic happiness and self-confidence to the extent that it has become contagious.

I started thinking about my own goals and how irresponsibly I’d been “pursuing” them. After all, if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing right. Anything worth having is worth working hard for, etc., etc. David Foster Wallace liked to point out that clichés and truisms like these get their reputations by being, well, true.

One afternoon, I told Sara all this and explained my own plans for a lifestyle change. “Starting tomorrow,” I said, “I’m getting up at six a.m., brewing myself some coffee, and writing until 7:20” (about the time I normally get up for work). Since she’s a much better spouse than I am, she evinced nothing but bubbly support for my decision (in retrospect, perhaps this is because my lifestyle change doesn’t mean that she has to get up at six in the bleeding morning, but I digress). I bought myself some Seattle’s Best to brew at home, lugged out the coffee maker, set the auto-brew timer for six, and forced myself into bed at around ten o’ clock.

Needless to say, I hated myself something fierce eight hours later. This is not a new feeling. I’ve been writing seriously for years (I’ll give you a moment to suspend your disbelief), but I have never been able to sustain any sort of work schedule, which, if you’ve ever read a book on writing (I have—about half a dozen, in fact), is pretty much the first thing that anyone who’s ever had success will tell you to do. The guilt that comes from not writing is the inverse of the guilt that stems from scarfing a handful of Oreos right before bed: you feel terrible because you’re not doing something. So on days when inspiration struck, I might pound out a couple thousand words in a flurry, but inevitably came the crash, which might last for a week or three, in which I wouldn’t jot a single letter. The guilt would swell and recede until another burst of the muse’s pixie dust would float down from heaven.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Keep in mind that during this time I produced a few short stories, numerous long-winded blog posts (I’m sorry. Or, you’re welcome. I can’t decide.), more than 200 pages of a collaborative memoir, and 25,000 words of a still-in-progress novel. Imagine what I would have accomplished had I actually worked with any degree of consistency. I would, but the guilt would kill me. Now, back to hating myself.

So there I lay. The pitch black of my bedroom as my left arm groped numbly for the snooze button. Don’t close your eyes. Just five more minutes. No! That’s the kind of thinking that got you into this mess. I can start tomorrow. It’ll never happen. It’s not like I’m going to get anything real done in an hour, anyway. Get. Your. ASS. Out. Of. BED!

I swung my feet over the bed’s edge, and when they found the floor, I knew the hardest part was over. I switched the alarm off, threw on a rumpled hoodie, and marched out to my computer.

Today marks the twelfth consecutive day (weekends included) that I have fought through that same routine. The thirty seconds after my eyes open are still the hardest. By the time I’ve poured the coffee and opened whatever file I’m working on, I’m itching to go. An hour isn’t a lot of time, and some days are more productive than others, but even if I only write a few hundred words or spend most of the time staring in perplexed thought at the screen, I’ve put in my time. Anything else I write that day is icing on the cake, and every night, I go to bed feeling like I’ve taken another step toward being a writer. Maybe soon I’ll even lose the painful, self-conscious embarrassment that comes with explaining to people that a writer is exactly what I want to be, because, increasingly, it’s what I am.

Were my name Phil (in 1967), this is what my mornings would look like.

Whatever the long-term results of this endeavor (and believe me, I’ve let my imagination run wild on that front; writing is like playing the lottery: a lot of the fun is tied up in dreaming), I no longer feel guilty about my work habits. And that feeling alone is probably worth it.

If a faith without works is dead, then my faith in myself had been on life support. What I said and thought and what I actually did were two very different things. But no longer. Thanks to my wife, I’ve seen the Promised Land, and it’s filled with early mornings, the smell of coffee, and the soft sound of typing.

By Josh Corman

Follow me on Twitter @JoshACorman