Writers Block and Bottlenecks

   Since deciding to write a book, or really, discovering that I am supposed to be writing a book, and giving in to that path... the idea of writing something short, sweet... pithy, is about the farthest thing from my mind. Which is either really good or really bad for my blog writing. Good, because I have so many more meaningful ideas. Even my non-book/past-related thoughts are richer. Stronger. Just... better. But, that also means they are daunting and time consuming to write out. At least to write in a way that I would be willing to put out into the world free for the reading. And so posts take days, sometimes weeks.


   The idea of writing "filler" really grates at me. I have done it. Much of my archives are filled with it. But now, it seems almost blasphemous to spend any of my coveted writing time with things of that nature. Writing for the sake of it.

   Funny how when I am entirely out of ideas writing for the sake of it seems to be the most noble of things. I check it off my list at the end of each day and feel like a real, honest writer for doing so. Because real writers don't wait for ideas. They let inspiration find them working, as Picasso asserted (much more articulately).

   Ah... but when there are an abundance of ideas, then, suddenly writing for the sake of writing is the worst thing I could do. How dare I write about my day? About tea and diapers and sore throats? About my outfit and why I feel like there is something Holy about this holey old t-shirt? When I should be writing about life, and love, and pain. About overcoming depression, and substance abuse, and self-injury. Or about God given callings. About Habakkuk and what we should do with our doubts. About feminism. And humanism. Gender roles. About all those gravely important topics that float around in my brain at 3am to the point where I have to decide whether it would be better to risk waking up the toddler (which is still so hard to type) then to lie awake for another hour, because I know that the next time I can write while he sleeps I will also have to share that time with the dishes, and eating, and cleaning... possibly even working out, or catching up on the episode of Supernatural that I feel asleep watching last night so that Jason won't have to watch it a second time when he gets home.

   How dare I write about writing? Or admit in written word that I struggle with such a time restriction on my writing but I watch Supernatural every night before I go to bed, so that I can wake up at 3am and feel like writing.

   My very first blog post was written in the middle of the night, after weeks of no sleep. And here I am sticking to my ten minutes a day... why? Because I'm scared. My thoughts are too big and vocabulary too small. I circle the story but can't find the words.

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