Tag Archives: Sunday

writing like a junkie

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Hair dressers’ kids always have the shabbiest hair, or so my darling Desiree tells me as she whirls about me in her spinning chair. Empathizing, I tell her I haven’t updated my blogsin the manner I exhort my clients to, and I know that’s the cardinal sin. I mean, why would you come back when it’s the same dated, tired post about DlP’s last launch?

Junkie (novel)

Junkie (novel) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, you wouldn’t and you don’t, and neither do I for blogs I like. There’s too much content out there to stalk a writer who doesn’t let you know what’s up. Following is one way to solve – you don’t have to check in like a love-sick teenage boy, but your sweetie shows up seemingly unbidden and like a total surprise in your inbox for you to ignore to click as you will. By all means, do follow. It’s like crack for bloggers when you do.

And it’s not for want of ideas. Seven times a day I feel the glow of the lightbulb in my heart and think “I gotta write about that!” But there are the three copy projects I’m behind on and our darling Samoyed

English: Future pet

English: Future pet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

needs a walk, there’s a project I’m trying to support into independent flight at the ambulance service where I used to medic, there’s the darling hubs and a friend who is moving too many miles away, the other who… well, you get the idea.

 

What will my clients think if they see I’m writing on my own blog, while they anticipate their next dose of sparkling goodness?

And so, I save up inspiration, hoarding it like a dragon on her hoard until some of it begins to smell and the organic-ness of some of it evaporates into the dank dragon cave air. Until.

Until a morning like this, when I’m so far behind I no longer have a plan for catching up (which is actually when I really will) and my own need to write for writing’s sake, out of my own heart and mind and need to express the truths of my life right now build up so mammothly that I become a monolith of focus, hunkered down at our kitchen table (where I don’t do work for clients) writing like I’m a drunk on  a bender. Some of it will show up on blogs, some of it will be scheduled for later, some will go the way of deleted electrons and the rest will go under “journal” in the cloud for future fodder.

And it occurs to me: would I be behind if I did this more often? Would I feel the metallic taste of craving abated as the words spill waterfall-wise out my fingers if I allowed them to seep when they arise?

But would they be as meaningful (at least to me) or as satisfying without the blood iron taste of word-lust sated or the massive buildup of mojo behind them?

But what about that mojo? Why do I dam it behind words unwritten? And is that the source of unfulfilled writing? (Duh-doy)

What if mojo wasn’t mysterious and rare feeling? What if I could live in the mojo and let it be a familiar mystery? What if I could write for my own blogs, heart, words like I do for clients and write for them, too, with less worry and more ease? What if I let myself need this like I need water, coffee, yoga and longing looks from Dear Hubs across the kitchen table in the hubbub of everyday business?

Odd how the very thing you thought you were doing turns out to be what you’ve built walls against. When I began writing for hire, I thought I was feeding this need. And I’m closer than I’ve ever been. But the galling magic and beauty of creative life is that there is always something we are keeping for later, hoarding for ourselves, making other. The fine pointed artistry of knowing when the incubator has done its job and giving independent life to those ideas, having the resource, attention, time and stamina to follow that organic logic – and to kill some ideas before they compete, and recognize what will not die – is always in progress.

I thought about making Sunday my day for writing, but routine is never food for my muse. I thought about writing before I walk each day, but again with the routine. Less prioritizing and more listening, less dictating and more responding, less thinking and more writing. That’s my plan for recovery.

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