to write or not to write
There are days when I could sit in front of this little blue screen, typing furiously, for hours. These are the good writing days. There are other days, which far outnumber the good writing days of late, where I sit in front of the computer, type a word or two, and give up. It’s not that I don’t have ideas. It’s just lately…the ideas are on a grander scale. You know?
I can’t sleep sometimes because I am writing novels in my head. Line by line. Which wouldn’t really be a bad thing, except they are all just snippets. They don’t come to me until after I’m snugged down in bed. At that point, it becomes a tossup between whether I can deal with getting up and writing down the sentences scrolling across my brain or whether sleep is more important. Sleep usually wins out, and although I reassure myself that I will remember all these great ideas in the morning, they are never there when I wake up.
These sentences, the ideas that come to me, are like someone else talking in my mind. It is, of course, my own voice, the voice of my imagination, but it is remarkably clear and well defined…as in, some people think in pictures, or concepts, I think. I think in words. Audible words.
I get ideas while driving too. I get ideas while walking, while doing pretty much anything except for when I’m sitting in front of the computer. Maybe I need one of those “Li’l Reminder” things they advertise on the Science Channel for the lady that can never remember where she parked, or the chick that can’t remember her grocery list. Then I can speak my ideas into my Li’l Reminder and play them back later. I don’t know though, I’ve never tried a dictation machine before but I wonder how difficult that would be, speaking my ideas out loud that are, up until that point, scrolling audibly through my head. Would I get feedback, do you think?
The upshot of all this is, I am getting the feeling, more and more, that I’m supposed to be writing something. Something big. Not just a blog, or a series of blogs, but something bigger than that. Not 100 Miles, either. I mean, I could see writing that someday. But the words in my brain don’t have anything to do with 100 Miles. They really don’t even have anything to do with me, actually…it’s like someone else’s story is being narrated in my brain.
Don’t get me wrong, the idea’s I’ve got running around definitely aren’t Pulitzer Prize winning, Stephen-King-like totally original ideas, and I worry that only women would really be interested in reading them…but you never can tell. It’s somewhere to start, anyway. Just don’t expect like a War and Peace or some kind of life changing, radical work that makes the Times bestseller list. I’d be happy with some sort of chick-litty (thanks for the word, Vi) book that dudes wouldn’t be embarrassed to buy in the bookstore. In person. And then like, want to buy the next one. So maybe chick lit – with grit. Or something.
Anyway. That’s what’s on my mind today. I have been unable to write for the last week, and what do I write at last? About how I want to write. There’s something very Freudian in that.
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