Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Pardon the Silence

Before I get into the meat of why I've been quiet for almost a week THIS time, I'd like to share a completely random thought. I'm thinking about adjusting my blog a bit. Not the color scheme, or anything major, but the titles. "Experiments in Writing, Singing, and Blogging" has felt cumbersome since I first typed it, but I couldn't think of anything sufficiently witty or more original than "Kellie's Blog". Also, I'm not sure I like the format of post title and post being on the same playing field. Changing the former is difficult in that it requires friendly linkers to change their sidebars, and even more so in that it requires me to get creative (I know, and me a writer, whatever to do).

But back to task. My silence.

I'm still pretty freakin' afraid of my Writer Within. I thought I had analyzed it to death and dismemberment this summer. Apparently not. This fear is rather entertaining because it takes anything going askew in my life and puffs it up into Giant Writer's Block size, singing me songs of "everything would be fine if you didn't have to work and could just write full-time". It's a clever disguise of the real issue. It makes me think that I'm accepting the Writer Within and working with it because I'm just trying to get to that "full-time writer" status. Ingenious, devilish bastard. Meanwhile, all the moaning and wailing and gnashing of teeth about how Life Sucks and how Tomorrow Will Be Better conveniently keeps me from appreciating today and the energy, time, and passion I have to write at this moment (when not slaving away at the day job and dealing with boredom and stupidity there…. Oops, see how easy that was?).

I won't bother you with the details of how this fear tripped me up this time and how I figured out what it had done. Suffice to say, Mark will tell you that life with me is never boring and that I know how to fall off a horse (the writing, live-in-the-now horse, people) with great drama and flair. I will share an example of just devious this fear is, though. I got stalled out on my writing just over a week ago, telling myself that I was afraid of the revision process for this book, that I couldn't see the plot lines the way I wanted to, and that I needed to do some more outlining and research on revision before I'd feel comfortable with forward momentum on The Masque. See how that works? I cleverly diverted myself from my writing with other writing issues. Granted, those are things that need to be addressed, but not at the sacrifice of my regular writing schedule. Eventually I'll get smarter than this annoying fear, and it won't have this same power over me. That's the hope, anyway.

So hopefully posting will get back to the promise of regularity that last week offered. "Promise of regularity" is a rather disturbing phrase, isn't it?

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