I didn’t write my 800 words yesterday. It wasn’t a case of too few ideas, but too many. So many possible things to write about, and so much to write about them.
On the other hand, it was a desire for a royal flush in the writing department. After a number of articles that have struck deep chords in my readers, I found myself becoming attached to the idea of writing about IMPORTANT topics.
If there’s anything that will get in the way of writing, it’s the desire to do it “right”.
I don’t “believe in” writer’s block. Writer’s block, in my opinion, is an excuse not to get writing. A fear-based response to the desire to write “right”.
When writer’s block hits, the only thing to do is to write through it. Pen to page, fingers to keyboard.
It’s not, a that point, about finding something to say, as much as saying anything.
Starting to fill the page.
In many cases the mind will turn toward a topic, and work the topic into a thread in fits and starts. The topic may even be invisible at first, hidden beneath the surface.
Today I find my block be this double-edge quill; too much to say, and the desire for excellence in saying it.
The ideas were flowing like leaves down a runnel yesterday – faster than I could catch them at times.
And the articles I’ve been waiting to write were big and daunting, waiting for the words to find their way to my tongue, or in this case, my fingers, lurking like phatasms in the front of my mind, right behind my eyes.
Too much to say about the Middle East; where can I find the words to tell the stories that found me, that formed me there?
Too much to write about the choice to change my last name; the retrogressive, transgressive act of abdicating my singularity by making a choice so metaphorical and traditional.
Too much to say about the apocalypse.
Spiritual materialism.
And then the new ideas, rushing like rainwater running off a roof, flowing through my fingers.
Words I want to say about the madness that descends on many women who have not found their “perfect” mate.
An open letter to President Obama.
So, out of overwhelm, I found excuses. I had to wait for this and that, I had errands to run, I put writing to the side until it was too late to focus.
In all of this, I got around to yoga again.
Just like writing, just like keeping to healthy habits and away from unhealthy ones, everyday – indeed every moment – is an opportunity for a recommitment.
So, I put fingers to keyboard, release attachment (again and again) to perfection, try to forget about you, my reader – though for me, you are impossible to forget about.
I write from myself, but I am not a writer who writes FOR myself. There are many of these, and more power to you who are.
But I write, nearly all the time, for you. The mostly faceless you – though sometimes I borrow a face, an idea of you to imagine as my reader so that I can find the right words, the context for the conversation, the contours that a talk with you would have, the curves we would wander in our intellectual discourse.
I write for my readers. However few or many might grace me with the gift of their attention, each piece of writing is for the world. This truth is a place where attachments arise for me. So instead of an attachment that stops me, I turn this attachment into a question.
Is the gift I want to offer you a worthy one? Is it worthy of your eyes? Is it a gift worth giving?
When I see the number of readers who read an article spike (yeah, I’m a stats counter…I pay attention to the traffic to my articles), the joy I feel is not gross (as in, unrefined) pride, but a sense of honor that I have been able to offer you a gift that enriched your life in any way.
As a writer, this is all that I hope for; the experience of our minds connecting in aether. A conversation that happens in the abstract.
I do not see writing as a one-way stream of communication. Words need to be heard, or read, to be given meaning. You, dear reader, make writing my ultimate reward.