Throw Words at the White

I used to consider myself a writer...

... but if I were to be honest with myself, I don't write.

Maybe I could be a writer... maybe even have been a writer, but writers write.

I used to journal pretty religiously. But I've lost at least two journals and though I still have and keep handy the last one I started, I've written in it all of maybe three times in the last year, and I was shocked to find entries in it as old as the end of 2005...

... sheesh. This blog is a better collection of the last several years and I haven't even written in it in three or four.

I used to get inspired to write often enough that I never had to create a discipline for it... I mean, there was definitely always room for some sort of structure or commitment to it, but I could count on needing to write frequently enough that I never had to worry about (strange as this may sound) things being left unwritten.

Now I see why people discipline themselves even in the things they love...

... I guess especially in the things they love.

I used to think I never wanted to write if it ever became work.

I even used that to justify the gaps in my writing. Even as they grew bigger... and bigger.

So juvenile.

A better, truer, philosophy (if not more fruitful) is that I shouldn't write if it isn't worth the work.

Same end potentially... except... this view doesn't ignore the value.

To have been willing to work so that words could once again drip from my fingers and these knots and jumbles of thoughts, emotions, pains and joys could be laid out and studied and untied...

... these restless wonderings could be let out to play...

... these infant and half-baked ideas could at least be given a chance to grow into something... to at the very least be allowed to confirm to myself that they might not be something great.

I have done my heart and head a huge disservice by not writing...

So, a cry to all of us writers not writing. It is time to write. It is past time, but forgive yourselves and start throwing words at the white.

I used to think that writing was about other people... about what I was giving them to read.

It's not.

It's about building your own stairs so that you can go higher... it's just a nice benefit that, if shared, others can stand on them too.

Beautiful people cooking me dinner.

For Now

Most of my blogging has moved to:

Beautiful People.

Check it out.

I think someone forgot to set the parking brake.

I know I've Said It Before

But this time I mean it.

I'm blogging again.

But not here. I've started a new thing in my life and I'll be putting most of my powers of blog over
HERE,
to keep a record of it.

For the most part, working at borders is fun... But we have issues in the magazine section.