But you say he's just a friend

Last night a friend scolded me for not blogging more. I used to blog all the time and then a few pivotal things happened that crippled my writing for public consumption. I have a few rules when it comes to blogging and because of those rules I couldn’t say what was on my mind. I mean, I said it, and saved it as a tidy little doc file on my mac, to be read later and put away as a past chapter. But it wasn’t something I felt comfortable with anyone reading. It was harsh and unstructured. Feelings flung onto the screen to put them somewhere. The topics were thick and heavy like molasses.

Then I just got used to not adding any posts and a pattern of non-blogging formed. The words that used to flow so easy would hover over my head like those clouds where imagination turns them into bunnies and trees. The bed was my grass and the ceiling was my sky. The words came out in half sentences to be rearranged and molded into sentences, and speeches. My quest was to find the perfect way to say something. Words are so important and powerful and I delighted in finding cunning ways to say the simplest things. But I only did it in thought, while everything was quiet and still. If I tried to type the words or write them it was like a door slammed shut, sealing off the brilliance.

It carried over into the writing for my novel. I wanted to write something that was purely my own and kept scrapping good ideas if I felt that they at all felt like another authors. That’s agony. Trying to come up with something completely unique became a HUGE problem. I couldn’t rid the doubts. I could already hear the mean words people would say. Oh she copied that from so and so. It was my kryptonite.

I dreamed often and was able to use words like they were magic. Why not awake? By morning they had faded into soft shadows and I shook off the feelings that I should make them permanent. I made excuses. When I would try to write the words didn’t come, but retreated into a place I couldn’t access. I ached that I couldn’t say the hard things out loud, on paper, or to my macbook. I hurt, feeling misunderstood and like I was fooling myself into thinking I could ever write. Everything I wrote felt like such garbage that I sunk farther and farther away from the stories that had so energized me before.

Then I found out that every single writer does that. Hell, every single artist does that. So that’s where I’ve been. That and I was totally conned by naughty masterminds to play World of Warcraft and subsequently have played…a lot.