Tuesday, November 02, 2010

How to Write Again

Obviously I'm having trouble with this. Life got hectic. Then I lost someone. Then I lost a few more people and this got so much harder to do.

I guess it just feels trite sometimes. Useless. Self-important.

I'll be walking down the aisle in the grocery store and start thinking about some topic and I'll just ramble on and on about it in my head but as soon as I sit down to write... it seems hollow and silly.

A friend and I were talking today and she has had a hard year or so. And I have had a hard couple of years. And she was talking about a crush she had on someone and then she stopped and looked up at me and said, "But this is stupid. It's so unimportant. It feels stupid to even think about it." Because, in the grand scheme of things, a crush on a stranger or fleeting thoughts about life, the universe and everything that come to you in a grocery store aisle... well, it all starts to seem a little trivial by comparison.

But I'm determined to get writing again. Even if it means subjecting Tracey (my most patient and faithful supporter) to terrible drivel.

I can't tell the drivel from the revelations any longer. I think all the time. And when you'd give anything to hear a person's voice again... suddenly small things can seem so large, can't they?

How do I separate the trivial and the tremendous?

The thing is - I can't. And for a little while, that may have to just be okay.

4 comments:

  1. One reason I write things down is to allow me to stop thinking about it. I'll think about something in the shower, then go type it up in my blog but not publish it. Instead of it distracting me all morning, I have expressed what I wanted to say. The odds are about even a day or so later I'll delete the post. At least my brain is free to work on other matters.

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  2. I guess I should have been clearer. I get the whole unsent letter thing, a fairly common psychological tool. Sure, that's an option. But I can only write so many entries that I don't publish before it starts to get absurd. I'm glad that's useful for you, but the point I intended to make was that I haven't been able to write anything that I can publish. Eventually I have to either close the blog or find some kind of peace with what content I'm creating. This blog started as an experiment for me, but I'm less invested in creating entertaining content at this point and more interested in having somewhere to put things down.

    And I miss this form of communicating with the online friends I made via blogging.

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  3. You haven't written anything in 2 years?

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