30 Days With Aristotle And Me

Spent the bulk of today listening to Chopin, editing Act I (which I wrote a few months ago and really love…and love to tinker with to make even better), and forging ahead into Act II.

I’m on target to meet my goal of five pages today.

However, I wasted a lot of time e-mailing and blogging elsewhere. It’s easy to do.

That reminds me of an episode of the classic Dick Van Dyke Show. It’s the last episode of Season Four (air date April 2, 1965) titled “A Farewell to Writing.”

For those of you who aren’t familiar with The Dick Van Dyke Show (shame on you!) it was, in my opinion, the finest sitcom ever written, the perfect TV show about the writers of a TV show. It starred Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore (who started a fashion trend with those really cute Capri pants of hers…and who can forget her whiny catchphrase, “Oh, Rob!!!!!” ), Rose Marie, Morey Amsterdam, Carl Reiner, and Richard Deacon. The level of talent was jaw dropping. The cast could sing and dance and tell jokes and entertain like nobody’s business.

Anyway, the episode “A Farewell to Writing” is about Dick wanting to write a novel. So he gets off by himself in a friend’s cabin somewhere and…

Dillies and dallies and tinkers and fiddles and futzes and reads and shuffles paper and plays paddle ball and talks to himself and dinks with this and that, finding a zillion projects to start and finish – instead of writing.

I can relate.

Like right now, for instance. It took me 30 minutes to post this.

I should have been writing.

But maybe I should watch “A Farewell to Writing” so I can write about it with more vividness.

And, gee whiz, look at that sink! The dishes are piling up.

And the poor birds need fresh seed before they starve to death. Look at their drawn, wan little faces.

And I haven’t petted our cat in a while. Where is he, anyway?

And I’ll bet I could wash and detail the car since it’s such a nice day. We won’t get many more of those.

And…

Just kidding!

Need to write two more pages first.