When I started my very first book, it was in a white Get Along Gang notebook. I have no remembrance of the Get Along Gang. I never watched a single episode of the show, to my knowledge. Since I hadn’t known who the Get Along Gang was (I was going to abbreviate that as GAG but… um, no), I never used the notebook as a kid so when I decided to start my first novel as a teen the notebook was entirely new, clean and empty and I claimed it for my fiction.

The draft of my book that is in that notebook is, of course, awful. I think most of the scenes in there don’t even happen in the current draft of the book. But that notebook, crammed full of parts (even discarded parts) of my book holds a very special place in my heart. The notebook is also rather beat up, having been dragged from beach to forest and jammed in everything from backpack to later briefcase over the course of many, many years.

The cover is still largely intact:

(The scan makes it look better than it does in real life, the cover is totally faded.)

Even after I filled the notebook, I still carried it around, editing what was in it, rereading it when I needed to get back into the story. Finally, about a year after I graduated college, I realized that carrying the only draft of my book around was a bad idea (What if I lost it?) so I started to leave it safely at home and write in other notebooks. At the time, I was bringing it back and forth to NYC with me on my commute and was pretty paranoid about losing it on the bus. So it stayed home.

But something happened. I couldn’t work on my book anymore. For the next two years, instead of writing a little more of it every single day like I’d done since I was a teenager, I was totally stalled out. I still opened the notebook and tried to work on it. I even started other projects because I thought maybe it was just that story. But the writing momentum I’d had for most of my life was totally gone.

Nothing was different except the notebook I was writing in. A strange thought came to me: What if the Get Along Gang notebook was like that feather for Dumbo? Sure, he could fly without it, but it was easier for him to make that leap if he was holding it. Because I’d been writing in that notebook and that one only for so long, my brain had gotten stuck to where I couldn’t write without it. It was as much a part of the process as putting pen to paper.

The mere sight of the Get Along Gang cast, makes me want to write. I have resolutely NOT watched the TV show, afraid that if I knew what the show was actually about, it would change the associations I currently have with the image. (I just looked it up in Wikipedia and, ironically, the show was criticized for emphasizing “group harmony over individualism” so it’s for the best I’ve never watched it. I would probably hate it.)

I knew this was bad. I couldn’t carry around a ratty notebook for the rest of my writing career because I couldn’t write without a totem. That was just silly. But, all the same, I couldn’t get started again. I needed to meet my insanity halfway.

A little while before we were married, my husband and I were at a town-wide garage sale. Something caught my eye. It was a mug. A Get Along Gag mug. That matches the notebook I have in colors, like they are from the same set. It was $3 which is a ridiculous price for a used mug but I bought it anyway.

I got home, washed it out, and placed it on my desk. Well aware of the symbolism, I took all of the pens on my desk out of what I’d been using to store them and put them into my new pen mug. It was a psychological exercise, but it worked. It was easier to pick up a pen out of the Get Along Gang mug and write with it. My brain accepted that as a substitute for the notebook.

It says, “One for all and all for fun!” (Mugs are hard to get a sense of in a photo)

Even when I work at my computer, it sits right there with me, my little writing totem, the feather that I clutch until the day I learn to fly on my own. From that day forward, I was able to work on my book again, able to work on anything really.

This past year, I got a bigger monitor and rearranged my desk. The Get Along Gang mug is now behind my Page-a-Day calendar, mostly obscured. I wondered, as I realized this, if that means I’ve finally cured myself of my need for the totem or if it’s just the fact that I know it is there and I no longer need to see it for it to work.

If you snuck into my office tomorrow and replaced that mug with another one, would I still be able to write? Probably. I’d like to think I’m a good enough writer that I don’t need to rely on mental tricks anymore to get my butt in the chair.

But don’t take so it, OK? I like my mug. Besides, I paid 3 whole dollars for that thing.

Do you have any weird writing habits or totems you need to get yourself ready to write?