booknboob.com Blog

Paul is at work and everyone else is sleeping.  Deep breath. Write, write, write.

I am always trying to capitalize on these moments of silence. I am not in that time and place in which the ideas come in the shower and then linger all day waiting for me to put them down.  Instead, I am trying to force the creativity to come in these patchwork moments that I try to collect.  Try to sew together.

Sadly, I’ll start a poem or a post or a piece of prose only to be interrupted and then to lose my momentum.   So, let’s get through this quickly, shall we.  (Should that have been a question mark?)

I started writing a post about pissing my pants on the streets of Italy.  It might have been a good post.  I don’t know.  But, it seemed so mundane.   Really.

Here I am again.  This same frozen feeling grabbing at my heart.  I started writing about me writing about the pissing of my pants and as soon as I felt a sense of direction this ugly halting feeling seized the ideas right from my brain.  And, now, again, I’m thinking “I have this insane case of writer’s block!  I could write about that!” and my fingers freeze on the keys.  I am silenced again.

What gives?

Outside of writing, I am experiencing much of the same issues.  I come home and am exhausted beyond belief.  I am living a life lately sans motivation.

I don’t think I’m depressed.

I don’t know what it is.

But, you probably don’t want to here about it either.  So, here’s my plan:

I am going to get up out of this seat.  I am going to put on some music.  I am going to sing along and clean my house and get everything all pretty and organized.

Then, if the space presents itself, I’m going to try this again.

I could write about pee pants, or summer, or Silas, or my recent experience jumping off meds and having to get back on, or the tea party that I’m attending this afternoon, or not being able to afford to have another baby (at least right away) and looking at life with a single child, or potty training, or preschool, or, or, or…

Anyhow, until then.  Thanks for the support.

Writing everyday is like alcohol or exercise.  You get addicted to it.  You need it.

It feels really, really good.

Except when you have nothing to say.

I believe that my last post is only two days old now.  Only two days that I haven’t written on this site.  Only two days that I haven’t written anything.

And, already, I’m depressed.

It’s not as if ideas haven’t been floating about in my head.  They have.  I just haven’t had enough inspiration to organize those ideas, to turn them into words, to roll them out and form them into coherent bits and pieces fit enough to share.

This loss, this lack of inspiration, turns everything just a little bit gray.

It’s like losing a lover.

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I have been sitting on the same spot on the couch off and on all day and now my butt aches.  I have been chewing the same piece of gum for several hours now and my jaw aches.  I am hunched, like a ridiculous fool, over this computer and I ache and ache and ache.
It’s the story.

It’s killing me.

I’m writing it into a deep, ugly hole.

So, I put it away.

Granted, I have taken some breaks today.  I took a lovely little walk.  I ate din-din with my family.  I finished a book.  I lifted weights (not too many and not too long, but still I lifted them).  I had a doctor’s appointment.  I watched two episodes from the second season of Lost.  And now I’m boring you.  I’m boring myself.  I am fried-ola.

Anyhow, this is why I struggle with writing fiction.  It’s a beast.  It could always be better and better and better.

I don’t think this is what I want to write about anymore.

I’d like to write about my doctor’s visit.  But, you know what.  I can’t.  I have to get away from this computer.

Away… away… away……………………………………………..

I have decided to enter a fiction contest.  Just a local one.  Winner gets published and $75 dollars.  It costs $10 to enter.

Oddly, I’m a wreck.

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So, while I flounder around starting posts and stopping them mid-sentence so that I can edit, edit, edit my content, so that I can double-check to make sure that I am saying what I am meaning to say, so that I can verify that I am writing something worthy of this brand of instant “publication”, I am, by all stretches of the creative imagination, not writing at all.  (In fact, I just started to delete this sentence and then stopped myself and forced myself to write it before I could read back to the beginning and delete the whole damn thing.  Where are thou, my self-confidence???)

So, I have, just recently, in the last few days in fact, experienced a little, life-altering epiphany.   And, yes, like most life-altering epiphanies–or at least like most of my life-altering epiphanies, because I have had so very many, you know– the burst of mind-numbing enlightenment was completely obvious.  Beyond obvious.  Let me fill you in…

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Oh my Lord!  It’s been over a month.

A silent 34 days.

Enough time to lose one’s precious readership…

Sadly, I stopped posting just moments after declaring that I was ready to my to “take my blog to the next level.”

Some level.

Do I smell a bout of self-defeatism?  Or, just a mere pause?  A pathetic vomitous irony? Or a long, breathless moment designed to gather my thoughts?

(A big thanks to Tata who not only took my declaration seriously but offered up her advice.  I am sorry, sorry, sorry to disappoint.  But, am still grateful, grateful, grateful for the advice.)

I wish I could commit to end the ceasefire and just blast away– one heated post after the next.

But, truth be told, I’m tired.

I could rant on and on about why I’ve been tired.  Author a novella about a sick and increasingly obstinate 14-month-old (who blatantly refuses to walk!!!).  Concoct a cast of characters that include a TV-obsessed husband, a room full of pre-adolescent psychos, and a Jehovah woman that just won’t leave well enough alone.

But, I’m past all that.  Of course I am.  And one day, I’m going to be a real writer.

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So, checking my email this morning had a very Christmas feel. Not only did I discover that readers actually gobbled up last night’s literary milk and cookies, but they also rallied around me in a fit of support and praise. Yes, I received the festive gift of two positive comments and it’s not even noon yet!

I must admit, dear note-leaving souls, that your recognition of my most recent post has me floating on cloud nine.

Hello, Cloud Nine, it’s nice to see you again.

What? You’d like me to kick off my shoes and stay awhile? Don’t mind if I do.

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I must admit, I’m still concerned. I was writing everyday and now I’m not. I’m looking for something to blame, but I’m coming up dry. I am about to return to work full time (oh, the bitter agony) which concerns me even more. I am afraid I’ll revert into a dried up piece of nothingness.

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First a disclaimer: This post may not contain my usual brand of spontaneity and comic wit. It may feel forced and disjointed. Or, it may feel like I am speaking through one of those boxes that is intended to alter a person’s voice when they want to remain anonymous during a television interview.

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It is two minutes until 10pm– the bedtime prescribed by my psychiatrist, my therapist, my sister, and my husband. Apparently, sleep is a miracle medicine all its own. I am trying to indulge in it. But, the ideas! The ideas keep coming and sleep just seems to get in the way.

I am out on the back deck. It is long past sun down. The bull frogs and numerous insects that I am not savvy enough to name have appeared, in their full choral majesty, to claim the darkness that is theirs to illuminate.

I am on the back deck with my lap top, two candles, and a pile of scratchings that are meant to be the skeletons of stories. My own attempts at illumination.

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