One fine afternoon at my home in Oregon, I resolved to pursue what I considered to be my someday passion. The day was perfect, for the sky was clear, the air was warm, my children were away at school, my wife was working, and there was simply nothing else for me to do. My home has a large porch with a weathered table on which I arranged my laptop, a French press full of coffee, and a heavy coffee cup. I was in my early forties at the time, and I remember standing and grinning at the arrangement. I thought the aesthetically pleasing writing arrangement lacked only a wine glass, a bottle of Merlot, an ash tray, and several expensive cigars, but I decided those would come later — after I had established myself as a writer. I have always believed that people should look the part they wish to play. That is why I intentionally skipped shaving that morning, wore an un-tucked oxford with rolled sleeves, and had on jeans that appeared to be well worn because of the expensive rips and frays in the material. When I finally sat down to write, I felt like an airline captain must feel when surrounded by levers, lights, switches, and buttons. I was ready to fly.

Sitting and waiting for my computer to boot, I looked to where I had a fountain on my front patio, just off from the porch. Spring rain water had kept the fountain’s reservoir full, and I sat watching as water dripped down the fountain and splashed into its surrounding pool. The fountain had two undressed Greek figures sitting under an umbrella, and one figure was that of a young girl reading an open book. On her knee was a little boy, and the boy was leaning over the book as though fascinated by a story. I grinned and nodded my head at the statue. Even my home, I thought, was that of a writer’s.

When I took my first sip of the hot coffee, I placed my finger on the computer and started typing. It was just then, however, that the light dripping sound of the fountain became the violent flapping sound of a bird taking a bath. I snapped my head over to where I found a robin standing in the fountain’s pool. With her head held high, she stood her guard and made quick, left and right turns. Satisfied, she followed with periodic dips of her head into the fountain water, spread both wings, and took a quick, violent, flapping, and splashing bird bath. Her activity sent splashes of bird water flying over the fountain’s edge. She next lifted her head, just as quickly as she had dipped it, resumed her paranoid watch for threats, took another flap bath, and then flew away. She left me entirely alone so I could finally begin my writing.

The dripping fountain water then became a sort of discarded background sound. I began writing my first sentence. There was an immediate problem, though. Adults do not necessarily recall the grammar lessons of their youth, so I found myself struggling to distinguish the use of the two words “that” and “which.” Paused and not writing, I frowned, waited, and then solved my problem by smartly combining the two words. I produced a defeated “that which” line.

There is a tall apple tree in my front orchard, and this tree has had for years a large woodpecker hole high up in its trunk. I had seen the hole years earlier, so when I next heard the pecking of the bird, just at the conclusion of my that/which mini-crisis, I looked at the hole. I recall wondering if the hole might become so well pecked that it could affect the very integrity of the tree. This thought, unfortunately, caused a bigger problem for my writing effort. Was it affect or effect? Even though I’ve looked up the two words enough times to know their difference, I did not. I grinned to myself when I recalled the name I had for this word problem. I called them ‘fect problems. I laughed out loud at the clever thought.

Hot coffee is my writing companion. I am especially fond of coffee when it is too hot to drink. I had taken several sips while considering the ‘fect problem, but I then set my cup aside and, once again, wrote like a writer. I had to backup several sentences in order to re-enter the stream of thought I had recently abandoned. Again flowing in the stream of writing, I sure did enjoy writing on my porch that afternoon. At one point, I even removed my fingers from the keys, placed the thumb of my right hand under my chin, and looked off into the distance. I was doing it. I was becoming a writer.

My attention was suddenly drawn by another bird. There were two birds, actually. Being spring, the two appeared to be performing some happy mating chase, with dipping wings and awkward direction changes. I watched the action until the two disappeared from my sight, and then I returned to my writing. I saw the reflection of my grin in the computer monitor.

“Damn!” I discovered that I had earlier dangled a preposition, so I returned to rework the offense. I wondered who had determined that prepositions placed at the end of sentences constituted bad grammatical form. I recalled hearing the conversations of neighbors and of television news reporters who did it all the time. They made the dangling of prepositions more the rule than an exception. 

And then, but, or maybe not at all, I next found that I had begun a sentence with a conjunction. I wondered about that rule, too, but I was uncertain if the rule had yet been abandoned. Nearly every best-seller I had thumbed, every newspaper I had read, and even my literary magazines were filled with sentences beginning with conjunctions. I made an executive decision to make my stand; I decided to be forever fine with the words “and,” “but,” and “or” at the beginning of my sentences. Of course, I still saw the exonerated violator sitting at the beginning of one of my earlier sentences. It pestered my  attention until I finally became so irritated by the conjunction that I took corrective action. I was mad, but I abandoned my fresh resolve and reworked the offensive sentence. I decided then to write with a new determination.

My work was again interrupted, however, by the honk-honk-honking of a large flight of geese, returning from the south. I looked up at them and smiled. Seeing their perfect form for achieving the drafting affect, at the same time listening to their honks of encouragement, I took a drink of coffee and watched the formation. When they were on their way south last fall, I recalled, I had looked out of my office window and seen nearly one-hundred of the big Canadian geese. They had been quietly walking on the grass of my lawn, and I remember thinking to take a mental picture of the scene. I did that so I could later use words to artistically describe the scene. I planned to become a writer.

The geese had been just outside of my window. They had looked like dark lumps that contrasted with the green grass of my lawn. I had felt an eerie sensation from their close silence. They had struck me as having no care — that is, they had no care until my dog had sent them honking and flapping southward. Hearing and watching them return north, I contemplated the season’s change and the changes my getting serious about writing would bring. I now wrote. I might someday become a serious novelist.

When I returned to typing well-crafted sentences, I got hung-up on a quotation mark. Actually, it was the sentence-ending period that stopped me. I had always viewed a period as the final end to every sentence — period! — but there I was, sitting on my warm porch, finally writing, and I was forced to place a quotation mark on the outside of a period. 

“What is this?” I remember asking out loud. “A period is final.” 

I frowned at the closing quotation mark like it was a spilled drop of coffee, and I abandoned my writing effort in frustration. There was flapping in my fountain, pecking in my apple tree, some lascivious flying scene just over there, and a highway of honking in the sky above me. Coupled with a split infinitive, a dangling modifier, sentence fragments, and the want of a shave, I quit writing for the day.

So this is how it feels, I thought, to be a frustrated writer. At least I’m a writer.