I should have something to write, but I don't. I have ideas and images, but I don't feel inspired to write about them now. I mean, I have one or two huge themes I want to write about, but I can't bring myself to write about it right now. I feel like I need a huge swath of time, not just my lunch hour at work.
But I still don't know what to write right now. This is the part of writing I hate. When you sit at a keyboard, and you don't know what to write. And I've read everything about this by other writers. Some say if you don't have something to write, don't write. Some say if you don't have anything to write, write anyway. Even if it's mundane and crappy.
But now I have an audience. I really don't want to bore you my beloved audience to tears. I have page views to think about! I don't want to just quote poems or write my name over and over again. Albeit, this is the advantage of having a journal. If you feel the need to write crap, you can write crap in your journal. No one will see it. No one will see it except for my biographer who will probably just making a passing aside to the odd habit of mind during writer's block to write out my name over and over again or to write dictionary terms. And then maybe some grad school student will take that aside and turn it into their master's thesis that never gets finished because they end up hitting the same damn writer's block.
Okay, three paragraphs. There we go. I'm getting somewhere now. I wish I had words for conveying to you how helpful and how painful and stressful this process has been for me. It's like exercise for me...sometimes. There are some days I hate exercising, well, that's most days. However, if you make it something else, like playing on the Wii or xBox Kinect or playing Frisbee or something fun I will probably like it. Heck, even something practical like mowing the lawn or cleaning the house, and I can get over that hate hump. Because I really hate it. But here's the thing, I feel awesome after I'm finished working out. Every dang time. And that's how it is with these posts. There are days when it is a horribly mundane and tedious process, but I did it. And I can look at it online and say, ha, I did it. I showed you, Once-Unfillable Space.
And then there are days when words and ideas are just flowing. And I finish and immediately read the post. I will even do further editing. I preview it. View it in landscape mode. Put a fedora on it. View it with denim. I will also check back on it more often than usual. It's like my baby. And I want to show people my baby. But honestly, I don't want to hear if my baby is ugly, not right now.
Later I will be open to criticism about the baby. In fact, later I may realize that baby is pretty darn ugly. But it's done. In the past.
But I think that's how it is with writing. Maybe it's not why I'm the habitual writer I would like to be. Maybe that's why I'm following through with this 40 day plan. But I had no idea how much it would affect my mood.
You can almost use If/Then statements to predict my mood regarding the upcoming blog post.
If I have plans in the evening, and I don't have time during the day, namely over lunch, to blog, my anxiety level will peak and usually become an all out whine-storm around 10 PM. At that point I may have already convinced myself to make a brief post. And I may have invented a new rule about blog posts on days where I'm busy and have evening plans.
If I have no plans in the evening, and I'm looking forward to relaxing with my wife, and I don't get my blog post finished over lunch, I will not be that anxious, at least up until 8 pm. If I have not blogged or started writing a blog post by 8 pm, I will start to get irritable and crotchety. My wife may not know why, but after our little banter I will explain why I'm really bothered.
Okay, back to this part of the post. See, unless I told you, you would have no idea I was just back earlier in the post adding more content. In fact, I added around two new paragraphs, some metaphors and similes that may or may not work and a whole lot of self-conscious blathering. And now, I'm back here at this place in this post, and I feel like the end is coming.
The end is near.
Let's not even get started talking about endings. Writing a good ending is very difficult. I once had a creative writing professor tell me the most important parts of a poem are the beginning and ending. I tend to think that's true, inasmuch as that's what the reader remembers later. However, I would argue the beginning is the most important because you can decide to just not read any further. And you, the audience, have completely severed your relationship to that poem. And that's why your first line almost has to be a like a hook. You have to bring them into the poem. Take them on this journey. And then, at the end, you can choose where you want to leave your reader. Ambiguity? Optimism? Cynicism? Anger? Wrapped up with a nice bow?
Ok.
I think this is it.
The end is here.
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