The dreaded blinking cursor. Daring you to fill a page with words that make sense, words that are interesting, and words that say something. The last category for me would translate to something that people want to read.
That is a constant battle for me, the battle of who cares.
Who wants to read my mundane anecdotes? Who wants to read about my musings? Who
am I writing for? Then, when I get to that last question, I realize the answer
is me. I am writing for myself. If someone else wants to accompany me on the
journey, that’s fantastic! But, I will still keep writing.
On the days where it’s a struggle, I might describe the
process to myself. I will try to be more mindful of what inspires me. I will try
to establish a working title or a descriptive sentence. Sometimes it works, sometimes
it doesn’t. I recently mentioned that when I was writing more regularly,
everything was inspiration for a blog post.
I wasn’t as concerned with anything close to perfection- I
was more concerned with sharing content. I also think a major part of my
consistent posting was because I had so much turmoil in my life that I needed a
safe outlet.
My life is calmer now, which is great, but it also means
that I don’t have ideas served to me on a platter. I need to forage for them,
mine them from my daily life. Because my life is calmer, I struggle with believing
that anyone will want to read about my unexceptional experiences. Why do I
believe chaos equals creativity? Or at least fuels it? Why do I believe chaos
equals interesting? This fuels the battle of who cares. There I am, staring at
the white page, blank except for that (sometimes) intimidating blinking cursor.
Mocking me, daring me to put something (anything) on the page.
I must confess, the cursor wins the battle most of the time,
which is why my posting is sporadic. The blinking is almost audibly saying who
cares. I’ve thought about joining a writing group, and I haven’t decided against
it, but I haven’t done it, either. I’m not sure how I would do with deadlines. What
if I got a prompt about a subject I wasn’t interested in, or knew absolutely
nothing about? Knowing me, I would spend so much time researching the topic, I
would miss the deadline.
Here I am speculating, almost talking myself out of trying
something that might actually help me. Is it fear? What if I really put in an
earnest effort? What if I finished one of my stories or the novel I’ve started
so many times? What if I pushed my fledgling story out of the proverbial nest
and it fell instead of soared? My hope, my fantasy of being an author would
likely splat as well.
And there it is. In black and white.
To quote Stephen King, time to get busy livin’ or get busy
dyin’. I think I’ll look for a writing group.
