Friday, January 13, 2017

The Merits of Spider Solitaire and Writing



The Merits of Spider Solitaire and Writing by Debra H. Goldstein
When my writing isn’t going well or I’m simply bored, I play Spider Solitaire.  In the old days, before I bought my latest computers, my game of choice was Solitaire.  Occasionally, even now, I’ll play a hand of Solitaire, but usually I devote my energies to Spider Solitaire. I find it more of a challenge, plus it wastes more time.

Let me be a bit more specific. The merits of the game are simple – it is a challenge (I’m still at the mid-level of play), it’s fun, and more important it distracts me from the project at hand for 3-5 minutes.  If I play enough games of Spider Solitaire, an hour can easily fly by.  That’s something that doesn’t always happen with my writing.  When I’m drawing a blank or the words coming out can best be defined as trash, time moves slowly.  In fact, it crawls at a pace that the fastest thing I can do is hit delete and realize the dead feeling I have is despair.

That’s not the case when I play Spider Solitaire.  The hand may not work out, but a message flashes that lets me know I played a good game.  I smile and begin another game.  There is no gap thinking I’ll never find my way.  A click and I’m there.  Not bad, but not good, either.  Because instinctively, I know that if I click away all the hours, in the end I’ll feel worse for not having tried to find a way to communicate my thoughts. 

I write to express myself. I play Spider Solitaire as a means of avoidance.  Both have a complimentary place – the key is to find a balance between the two.  Those who do, write.  Those who don’t, mourn what could have been.

7 comments:

  1. love this post. my game of choice is Backgammon.

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    1. That is a fun game, but I only think of backgammon with a set my parents had -- very fancy set, but not virtual.

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  2. My wife Tara is addicted to this game as well. Nice post!

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    1. Except, Tara is more creative than I am. Nice cover picture of her the other day.

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  3. Nice post, Debra. I find that writers my age tend to go for electronic versions of traditional card/board games to procrastinate on writing while younger writers tend to use full-fledged video games, such as Dragon Age or Assassin's Creed for their distractions.

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    1. You are so right about that. My son-in-law has a dedicated game area while I just stick to my computer. Hope you are feeling better.

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  4. Great post, Debra! Maybe we could get an encouraging message that pops up when we're writing...or rather when we're not writing because we're stuck. "You can do it!" "Write on!"

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