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prev home archive next Momentary Thought I covet this website's design. I love a well designed website, but it just makes me want to copy it. Can't I come up with something original? High/Low High: Ih. Low: Ih, too. Current Obsession Marie's braces, and the payment therefor. Grin Source Ih. Did I say that already? Singing Nothing. A Year Ago More or less In which I fight a lion. Storyteller Bio Dramatis Personnae Who I Read Recipes |
Running out of words usually isn't a problem for me, and yet I've experienced it for the past week. I have an odd pressure inside my head which is usually the prompt I use to tell myself that I need to write something. That prompt is usually accompanied by a subject. But here and now, I have the prompt, but no subject. It is said that just starting the writing process, putting words to paper (fingers to keyboard), will uncork the stoppage in the brain and allow the ideas to come. The cork must be a stubborn one, because instead of the steady flow of words tumbling all over themselves in a fit of writerly ecstasy, I actually pause at each break, contemplate at each period. Wonder what is supposed to follow next. Perhaps it is somewhat like meditation. The pause, the deep breath in, that allows the exhale to follow. The period of one sentence necessitates the creation of the sentence to follow. The pressure that is at once comfortable and uncomfortable, familiar and frustrating. Out. Get out. It's distracting, this echoing. My attention wanders. My ears pick up sounds they wouldn't have before - the hum of my printer, someone else's typing, the ebb and flow of people in the hallways. My skin attunes to minor discomforts - the itch on my arm, the pinch of my glasses, the hardness of my seat. My mood suffers under this pressure. My mind constantly searches for the outlet it knows it needs, but has no topic for. I shuffle through the possibilities - is it work? Money? Home? Is it frustration? Boredom? Hunger? I go through my day distantly, turning my thoughts inward while I let automatic responses suffice on the outside. Hi, how are you? Fine, thanks. What's going on? Busy, busy, busy. What can I do for you? You need to talk to so-and-so. AcronymCo, this is Laura... Sorry, you have the wrong number. I thought that I was a person fraught with profound observations and opinions, an interesting viewpoint in life and the gift of sharing that viewpoint. Yet the more I write, the more trite my words sound to my ears. When was the last time I wrote something profound, something meaningful? When was the last time I made myself, or someone else, stop and think at my words? Has my writing just become a dull recitation of my life? A laundry list of what I did today? Where do other people get their ideas? Do they just have more stimulus? An active life that isn't a continuing revolution of work, home, kids, and bills? The more journals I discover, the more deeply I feel that I don't have much to contribute. Just minutiae. Theirs are brightly colored words drawn appealingly on the page that create a form of art. Beautifully flowing thoughts that make me think "I wish I could write like that". Mine is hard block printing on plain paper. Artless, in a bad way. Do I continue to write because I want to be good at something? Am I afraid that if I cease to write, I have nothing that comes to hand to be named off as "what I do"? Do I really work hard enough at it when I *do* write that I can honestly say that every word, every entry, every story, is the best that I can contribute? No. Or perhaps yes, at that moment. I haven't defined what is the "perfect" setting for me, or the "perfect" time. I don't think that such a thing exists. I write a lot at my desk at work, and only a little at my desk at home. Should I change the setting? The time? The place? Would I write profoundly surrounded by trees and greenery, and perfunctory while surrounded by walls and noise? Would my writing be dreamy and wistful when I wake up in the morning, harsh and crass right after work? How many times have I left an entry thinking "I should have spent more time on that"? Is it okay to write for the sake of writing, hoping something meaningful will follow? I've always written when I felt the "need". I thought that if I made myself, or stuck to some kind of regimented schedule, that my writing would suffer. But I feel that way now, so perhaps there is something I should change. Force something other than that pressure that's not giving me the subject today, to get me to write. Or perhaps it did give me a subject today, for here are the words. I will try an experiment. I will write every day for two weeks, and I will write under different circumstances every day. Different times, different places, different moods. I will figure out what is creating this pressure, and define something for myself. |