On Writing IV

Written January 2009.

I’m finding myself at a loss for words…yet again.  With the exception of the last few days, I sit in front of my screen and I open up my word document with all of these topics I want to discuss and I am so overwhelmed because I don’t know where to start.  If I’m not passionate about a subject, I can’t discuss it and articulate what I want to say in the manner in which I want to present to others.  This is where I get locked up and bogged down because while I don’t feel good about writing on a certain subject, other topics continue to flood my mind and they won’t leave until I have written it out.  So, here I am, writing down ideas and not expounding upon them.  The ideas pile up and I start to feel swamped with subjects and I get mentally constipated. I guess my only option is to simply rough it out.  Push through and write about something even if I’m not feeling it.

I kind of have a hierarchy of importance when it comes to the things I want to talk about.  There’s the every day observations that kind of just come to me that aren’t necessarily important.  And then it progresses to poetry to personal reflections about myself to the way I see the world to short stories.  And the unimportant stuff I usually write about, even if it isn’t the spectacularly sweeping masterpiece I had hoped it would be.  The important stuff I refuse to write half-heartedly.  I think there’s some stuff in my head too important to mishandle.  Stuff so important that if I don’t express it in the proper manner, the meaning might be lost or misunderstood.  Although I don’t think my ideas are the most amazing and my delivery the most heart melting, I still think it all deserves the best I can give to it. 

I think this works out perfectly.  In keeping with my resolution to write daily, I can go through my list of topics and get crackin’!  If I’m not feeling particularly in the mood to write, I can at least pick a topic that I feel is least important and write about it and post it and at least get it out of my head and out of my word document.  Did you know that I have nineteen Word document pages of stuff I want to talk about?  I mean, it’s not all like one sentence ideas.  A lot of it is unfinished entries, unfinished poetry and the beginnings of stories but that’s still a massive load!  And I really need to start releasing some of this.  I like to think this Word document is a physical representation of my head.  It is cluttered and filled with some important stuff and some not so important stuff and mostly stuff that just needs to be let go.