I’ve been awake for several hours, but the usual routine of writing just after I got up eluded me. Even the basic stuff like the thoughts for the day seemed akin to pushing a boulder up a long, wet, mud slope. Maybe it’s just that the weather is wet and sullen, the sort of weather that conspires, along with susceptible moods, to drown creativity in dirty wet pools.
Last night, I wrote an odd poem that I posted both on my blog and on Facebook for some reason. I didn’t like it a lot then and it hasn’t improved much since, but I may be my own worst critic. Probably not. So I wrote another one this morning. Hmm. But didn’t I just say creativity was drowning? Perhaps my efforts at poetry were vain attempts to pull it out of the pools of dirty water.
The words spilling from my fingers this morning aren’t helping. Half-hearted efforts to get the creative juices flowing succeed only in getting them to leak out of the wrong places.
Writing well requires more discipline, more energy, and more talent than I’ve been exhibiting of late. And it requires time dedicated to getting words onto the page without “tinkering” with them during the process of getting them written. The time for tinkering is after the rough draft has been completed. And then, the draft may need more than tinkering; it may need an overhaul. But that’s the way it is; you must have a product before you can begin to shape it and mold it into something of which you might be proud.
Lately, my writing has, by and large, been limited to the words I post on this blog. That is nothing short of shameful for someone who hopes to wear the badge of “writer.” Volume, copious volume, is what I need to produce. Coupled with that, I must read more, much more. That is a problem, especially now with the map dot fingerprint dystrophy of my right eye (I assume that’s what it is, based on an earlier diagnosis with similar symptoms, though this incidence is far worse in terms of vision than before). First steps first: see an ophthalmologist to verify the problem and seek a solution.
See how I did that? I blamed my failure to be a more prolific writer on a physical ailment of my eye? I suppose I could blame my mood swings on the same thing. Or I could invent something, basing the invention on reality; yes, that’s it, my dark moods tend to follow the cycles of having dry skin. I can invent excuses for all sorts of things. That’s what writing is doing for me.
