Midway Observations...

This project of writing every day for Lent is pretty dang difficult.  Every day is a deadline.  Some days are easy, and ideas come to down on the page without any difficulty.  Some days are productive and I write more than one blog entry in a sitting (I love those days - but it’s only happened twice so far).  But, most days are just drudgery.  Sometimes I have a few ideas, but can only write a few sentences for each - then I start writing something new.  Some days - there’s just plain nothing.  I just stare blankly.  I’ll wait a few hours - then do the same later.  I’ve had a few nights where I was only minutes away from missing the daily deadline.  It’s sort of funny actually.  It’s difficult to be disciplined in this writing endeavor.

Sometimes an idea is bigger than I can write in a blog.  I have one that I’m struggling with right now that just isn’t working.  It’s three pages so far - and isn’t getting any easier.  I’m trying to shorten it.  I tweak it here - cut a line there - but then I lose my way again and write four more paragraphs.  It makes me want to break things sometimes.  What’s infuriating is that it’s a good idea.  It’s powerful.  But the way I write it - ugh.  I think of the line from that Soundgarden song:  “The words I say never seem to match up with the ones inside my head.”  I’m gonna keep chipping away at it.  But - grrrr.

It’s pretty difficult to be funny too.  Sometimes I’m overly sarcastic in something I write, but it doesn’t come off sounding that way when I read it back to myself.  Sometimes I’m just being silly - but that doesn’t work either.  I do have my moments - but it’s more difficult to capture humor with just words.  When you speak - you have tone - and facial expressions - hand movements.  With writing - there’s just letters.  How do you convey emotion - or tone - with letters?

Picture painting with words is difficult too.  It’s so hard to place someone where you once were.  I see pictures in my head of memories - but describing them just doesn’t do them justice sometimes.  Occasionally, I get close.  But most of the time - I write, rewrite, and rewrite again.  And often it comes off lacking no matter how I try to say something.

It’s very difficult writing every day.  But, I do like it.  I’m getting a little quicker at it.  I’m seeing patters better and understanding my limitations a little bit more too.  But ideas are random.  I can’t always choose them.  Once, I was laying down to go to sleep - and one of those darn good ideas started swimming around in my head.  I was half asleep, but words kept coming.  I literally thought, “I better write this down right now.”  It was annoying.  The poem “Sin Riddle” came out of that.  I didn’t choose that time to write - it chose me.  How irritating!  Sometimes I ignore that voice and totally miss an opportunity to write in that space.  Even more irritating!  

But that's the nature of the beast, I suppose.  It's a love/hate relationship - writing.  

One last thing.  Since writing daily, I've also noticed something about other writers.  I follow a few blogs and they’re mostly hit and miss with their writing schedules.  They post whenever - it’s just kinda random.  Not all of the blogs I read are like this - but most are.  I actually get a little annoyed that they don’t write more because I want to hear their thoughts.  I like what they have to say.  But the unpredictability of posts makes me less likely to keep track of their blog.  I’m gonna think about that some more as I finish this Lent blogging every day commitment - because that was me before doing this... hmmm...

I’m thankful for choosing this task for Lent - even though I still have a few more week to go and it's quite demanding.  I probably won’t have much to say tomorrow - I'll stare blankly at this screen yet again - but that's ok.  haha.  I’ll do it anyway - even if it’s a one sentence blog.  I haven’t done that yet - so that'll be coming soon - for sure.  

Have a great day!

Jer