Want to know how my OCD works?
First there's this: I can't start writing until I have the right music. I know what I want to write about but I don't know what I want to listen to. Something vaguely psychotic. But not Talking Heads. Something repetitive and relentless. Something with some energy for the flow.
I'd thought this morning that I'd wanted 'The New Life' by The Waterboys but I think that's for writing something next Friday. I know the subject, part of it could have been covered this week, but really? Really, it's for next week.
Inspiration hits. Looks to CD racking, despite the fact that the music is going to be played through Apple Music. I say 'CD rack', it's a wall. Found the answer there though. The answer is this:
(Soundtrack: The Velvet Underground 'Sister Ray'. I considered the idea of one of the versions from The Quine Tapes live box set. "How many versions of one song do you need?" said J at some point in the past. In this case? Three more, the shortest coming in at an utterly hypnotic 37 minutes. In the end, though, I plumped for the original 'White Light, White Heat' version. Just the 17' 31" of it. I originally had it on the legendary 'Coke Bottle' compilation; it stuck in the middle, I didn't realise for at least five years.)
This is how my OCD works then:
I can't write until everything around me is tidy enough to work.
Have you seen my study?
That's my study. That's where this stuff happens. That's where the plays start. Everything exactly where I need it, a diary with tasks and tick boxes open next to me, several notebooks on the go.
But this mood, this need for order so my mind is fresh and free to write extends through the rest of the house. I've been in an hour. In that time I've brought in the bin, washed the dishes that youngest son left last night when he decided that the perfect accompaniment to midnight games of Red Dead was pancakes. Hung a wash up, put a wash in, put clothes away, changed from work clothes - because you can't write this in work clothes. Fixed the shed. Youngest son, again, lost the padlock from the shed last week (don't ask, we've no idea) so his and J's bikes have been in the study and screaming at me 'put us away'. So, the lock from the old lock up that we used to store the set of Those Two Weeks from March to August last year was dug out of a drawer and finally put in the hasp it needed to live in. Bikes put back. In the dark. In the rain. Without banging my head for a change. Six foot two bloke in a five foot doorway. The road rings to my sudden swearing on many an occasion.
Sorted my jobs list for tomorrow:
- Two Anfield Wrap shows
- Pull apart GDPG
- Email re album reviews
- 200 words re goal celebrations' miseries
- pub quiz
- party
Yes, I order my social life in the diary in the same way.
And while I've been doing all this, J has come in from work and is making tea. So I have a deadline. And that deadline is in minutes.
(And I have to do this without interruption. I have to have my bubble. Tom just came in, fresh from the gym. Commented on Sister Ray. Had to point out I'm in mid flow, can't talk. He gets that. He writes.)
And the irony of all this?
I have literally nothing to write about tonight.
This is what you do when you're faced with the blank page. You fill it. With anything you can. You can always go back and change it.
Or you can just accept it and know the substance will show its head when it's needed.
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