The Barefoot Writer's Club

By Nichole Giles

I walk around my house with bare feet. It’s not that I dislike shoes, because I love shoes. But they don’t spend much time on my feet. My closet is full of shoes I only wear once in a while. But my cream colored carpet has yet to turn brown from the dirt that inevitably travels from shoe to floor.

The same thing goes for socks. I love socks. My favorites are the striped toe socks you can find in every store during the fall and winter months, and the ultra-soft fuzzy socks that make your feet slip around and are not practical for wearing inside shoes. I have several pairs of these as well, but I only wear them once in a while. When I’m at home, my feet are usually naked.

Which is why I was rolling on the floor laughing when my writer's group got into a discussion about washing machines that eat socks. Our topics usually vary on a pretty wide spectrum, especially since we all write different things for different genres. But really, lost socks? That topic moved on to become (or maybe it started out as) a discussion about laundry.

I don’t remember the discussion word for word. What I do remember is I could literally hear my own pile of clean clothes calling my name, begging me to step away from the computer and fold them. Even today, my laundry is watching me—tempting me to take time away from writing to do housework. It’s screaming, “Fold the socks! Fold us, please. Just a few pair…”

And while I’m tempted, I am determined to resist temptation. My shoes won’t be going anywhere without my feet in them, and neither will my socks. The same thing goes for my toilets, which need scrubbing, and my kitchen floor, and my windows, my flowerbeds that need weeding…. You can see how many distractions I could find. But if I did, I would put off writing indefinitely, maybe forever. And that, my friends, would be a tragedy.

So, I’ve decided to form the Barefoot Writer’s Club, and you’re all invited. If you are a writer who has the strength of will to ignore your talking laundry, you can be a member of this elite group. There is no group list, no contact requirements, no writing goals to reach, and we only require two things:

Willpower and vision.

The vision to see our projects through, and the willpower to not allow our daily lives to make us forget why we write. Now that’s my kind of club. I’m signing myself up right now. I can always mate those pesky socks later. Resist temptation, and you can be a member too.