You sit at your desk to write. The house is quiet. There are words pushing to get out, pushing for shape, but you can’t reach them. Yet. You try not to think about facebook, email, instagram, tumbler and twitter where things come fast and easy. Resist this fix. This is your writing day, damn it. Your phone whistles an incoming text. Swear loudly and read the text. It’s an announcement of some new app that helps you calculate your skills as a ninja. Bury the phone in the living room under a huge floor pillow.

You used to write for hours without distraction. Now it is 2014 and it is harder to stay focused because you have learned about apps and platforms, followers and hashtags. Recommit to making your writing a priority because you have to protect things that matter. Review your latest top ten list of “Things to Write About Someday”:

1. things in his closet
2. when you break down: it might not be what you think
3. hopelessness as a byproduct of the media
4. misplaced expectations
5. it’s one planet, so what’s with the immigration laws?
6. solitude
7. all the beauty around you
8. feminism isn’t dead and the fact that they think it is, disturbs me
9. privacy is not the most important right
10. stand up for your truth

Nothing on this list quickens your pulse today, wants to be written about today. Wonder if you are even a writer. Take a long run in the heat wearing your Fitbit. Tap it every 100 yards or so to be sure it works. Stroll to the park and sit for a long time on the grass and watch a woman wearing a scarf and a heavy coat trudge across the park to the bus stop. In one hand she carries a plaid shopping bag that looks heavy and with her other hand she keeps touching her face. Watch the way her fingers outline her cheekbones and eyes and eyebrows and forehead and nose and mouth and chin, over and over again, as if she’s trying to memorize it. Watch her keep doing this until she steps onto the crowded bus where you lose track of her.

When you get home, open a bottle of Chardonnay. Sip it while you stare at some of the books on your shelves. Davis, Didion, Houston, Hull, Murakami, Carver, Roy, Yuknavitch, Woolf. Watch your confidence flutter away like a dirty pigeon. Shave your legs with his razor. Avoid looking in the mirror because you might see your mother—something that’s been happening a lot lately, something that unnerves you greatly. Return to your desk and put your head in your arms. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Sink into a dreamy waiting feeling. Watch images float in, swirl around and float out.

And now. Words begin to come. You are writing. You are writing about a woman trudging across the park in a heavy coat who keeps touching her face. Call her Zelda.