…if I waited for the perfect thing to write about and never risked offending anyone.
I don’t know when this idea got planted in my brain but at some point I decided I shouldn’t, and didn’t want to, write personal, reflective posts in this blog. I didn’t want to be that pathetic writer wanna-be, focused inward instead of outward, writing about feelings and angst and failures instead of stories, essays, poems: legitimate writing. It has been all too easy these last few years not writing much of anything, waiting for the brilliant, the award winning, the insightful, the pithy.
I’d like to be done with this sort of self-defeating nonsense, these sorry excuses. I’ll never write anything, at least nothing of value, if I don’t knock it off and simply write. Part of writing is habit which means writing something, anything, good or bad, putting it all down, speaking with pen and paper day after day. Just writing.
Similarly, I think too much about who might read a particular bit I put on paper. What would so-and-so say if they saw this? I cap my pen by imagining what anyone, especially a relative, might think or say. I remember reading a writer advising new writers: if you’re concerned about what your family will think about what you write, you probably should be writing cook books. I like cook books (especially at supper-time) and respect cook-book writers, but that’s not what I’m aiming for.
Just back from New Zealand, where I wrote about the trip in a journal, I’m ready to get back to this blog. I’m still working on the journal/scrap book (a scrapjournal?) and will share bits (scraps) from that, along with regular writing. And if some of it is a me-fest, well, for now it’ll have to do. At least I’m writing. And if a reader isn’t happy with what I’m writing, then stop reading it.
I feel better already.
