separating dirt from poppy seed

I've been reading blogs lately, mostly to reassure myself.

What I am learning is that blogs are a disciplinary tool. Blogs keep writers accountable. Blogs measure how much we have written.

Or not written.

The little counter that displays how many posts are in a month gives me a push when I have no push left. I'm also learning that other writers struggle just like me. There are months when there are many, many posts and other months when there are only one or two.

I think this is because we get on to other things.

For example I have "gotten on" to reading other blogs which of course takes time that I could spend writing.

But it all seems to work together. I read a blog this morning by Geoffrey Philp in which he lists The Top Ten Things Writers Should Know. Here's a link:

http://geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com/2007/07/top-ten-things-every-writer-should-know.html

Now I don't know Geoffrey Philp ... yet ... but I liked what he had to say. For example, #6 is "Read", and I love to read. Reading is usually what makes me think about writing. Usually arrogant thinking like, "I could do that."

There is a story in Women Who Run With Wolves, an amazing collection of teaching fables and essays by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, about a little girl on a quest who is assigned an impossible task of separating dirt from poppy seed. She works very hard, late into the evening, exhausting herself so that she finally just sleeps the deepest sleep, uncaring anymore about what she must achieve.

And when she awakes, the work is done. There are two large piles: one dirt, one poppy seed.

Mysteriously, I think writing might be like this. At least I am beginning to catch a glimmer of understanding.

fear and consequences

Last night I visited "ponderful lessons", a blog I created six months ago and that I have not written in for three months.

I have not written in it for three months because I was afraid.

I have not written in it for three months because I did not think I had anything to say.

But I discovered last night that I did have something to say, AND I liked what I had to say.

This self-doubt is the bane of writers.

I became so afraid of not having anything of interest to say and of not being able to say it well, that I let a now uncountable number of ideas pass right on by.

That I could have written about.

And that readers MAY have enjoyed reading about.

This I must remember ...

the steel rod

I come to this page with a steel rod in my chest.

It feels cold and unyielding as though if I bend at all I will pierce my entire being and I will exist no more.

It keeps me from breathing.

It keeps me from writing.

But as they say, a writer must write, so I will bring this steel rod with me to this page and write until it softens.

Until it begins to let me breathe again.

I will recognize this steel rod as a temporary un-friend I must disengage from every day.

It hangs on as if to let go means death.

And it does mean death.

Death to the un-writer that is me.

picking up my pen again

I have left everything I think important behind me, except writing. I left a secure job to start a business I could not care less for. I left dreams. I left ideals. I left myself, though I suspect the me I left behind was only an illusion.

I have never been more afraid in my life.

Or more alive.

What if I discover after having given up on all that is familiar that I don't really like to write either? What, more frighteningly, if I discover that though I love to write, I am simply no good at it?

I hear stories all the time of people who have dreams only to discover that they don't have the aptitude or talent to carry their dreams forward. For example, I can't really sing, even though my daddy convinced me in my formative years that I had the most beautiful voice of the ages.

But I keep returning to these blank pages. It is the only place where I really feel as though I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. Oh dear God, let me remember and be comforted by these words!

Because I see no road here, no apparent path.

And I have responsibilities ... to myself, to my husband, to my children.

"Just write", says my husband Bill, a man of few words who ponders the deepest thoughts I've ever encountered.

It really is that simple.

And so I am picking up my pen again, remembering the words of Louisa May Alcott:

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and follow where they lead."