I don't know what exactly prevents me from blogging as frequently as "I'd like", except for laziness, which can't be the entire story, right? I do know that I start out with the intention of writing far more often than my track record will show. Many mornings, I convince myself that perhaps I just need some caffeine in me. I pump myself full of coffee while reading others' blogs until the point in which I'm much too jittery and unfocused to compose even one coherent sentence. Other days, when I aspire to write later in the day, I decide it'd be helpful to treat myself to an afternoon cap or two in order to breakdown the inhibitions that often plague me, prohibiting me from typing in fear that the prose that comes out will be, gasp, less than perfection. I manage a few soon-to-be discarded sentences before ending up sloshed and distracted by the kitten or something shiny.
All of this leads to a very important question: if I truly long to be a writer, why is it that I always dread... you know, writing? Especially when said writing is something as frivolous as a blog followed by mostly friends and family who only want a little insight into the exotic, new life of their long-lost, loved one? No really, if you know the answer, please share in the comments!
Perhaps, I need higher stakes. Maybe the reason I'm not writing is simply because I don't have to. I have more free time than ever right now, so there's no reason for me not to participate in National Novel Writing Month. The objective of NaNoWriMo, which takes place in November, is to write a 50,000 word piece of fiction in one month. It trains the author to get over the often fatal preoccupation with quality in every word that he writes. The mantra of NaNo is Quantity, NOT Quality. In order to produce a successful body of work, it first needs to be written! The bestsellers on your shelf probably barely resemble their original drafts, because writing is a process. I'm going to embrace that process once again, and hopefully mark my second "win" in NaNo.
I already have a plot brewing, and I'm excited to see where it takes me. I don't know exactly what effect this added strain will have on my blog. Perhaps it will leave me burnt out, and you won't hear a word from me in November. Or perhaps I will become so overwhelmed with the book that I'll turn to writing blog posts as a temporary distraction, finally viewing it as the fun, pressure-free activity that it is. We'll see!
Yay! I'm glad you decided to do it this year, perhaps we should get one of those "word war" widgets? Maybe I won't get the swine flu this year and will FINALLY be able to start writing Lentel? Thanks for the post, it's always nice to get a glimpse into my long lost best friend's life!
ReplyDeleteI think you've already answered your own question. But I'll do it again anyway since that sometimes helps.
ReplyDeleteYou don't write because you have this preoccupation with writing something perfect. This isn't helpful in the format of blogging, when a perfectly written post can sound contrived. Blogs are supposed to be fun, relaxed and off the cuff! Just let it flowwwww.
Save the perfection for your novels. Start out the next blog post you write with "dudes guess what?". That sets the tone for what we want to hear from you :) instead of "once upon a time, in the great and historical land of spain, in wich i live.... blahh."
OH. I'm doing a blogging thing that you'd like! It's called 4 Stories and it's a group blogging project. Uh, here:
http://frecklednest.blogspot.com/2010/09/4-stories-swimming.html
I already wrote mine since that swimming topic was from this past weekend. It is making me excited for the weekend so I can find out the next topic. It's weird because you have to think of four stories on one topic and at first I didn't think I had any but once you start thinking and writing, more and more start to appear. Before I knew it I had four, with others waiting in the wings!
Do it, pleeeeaseeeee!