The temperature has dropped and I can open the sunroom doors. "Big deal" says you but, for a chick who filed 12 pieces for the February issue last week and wrote a complete proposal for a new project upon which her income relies, this is akin to celebrating rain in the Kalahari Desert. The sunroom was hot last week, my cheap-o fan working overtime, and a box full of cans of Zero Coke was not helping. My blood and my thought patterns seemed to slow down along with my typing ratio. Glad to see the back of that one I promise you.
So as I wrote my TO DO list this morning, cool fresh air tickling my bare shoulders (ah ... I am wearing new fave strapless working from home maxi-dress. The glamour!) I stopped in my tracks and thought, "Blog - you must write something there today". Knowing I have been patchy to say the least in my postings I began to wonder why I had started this thing in the first place. I remember last year I had a re-think of the blog and wrote myself a new mission type statement about it.
This is what is great about a blog when you have a mind like a sieve like mine. You can go back and research what you previously thought and wrote. Hallelujah! If I could do this with every area of my life ... stop, rewind and discover what I promised someone else I'd do, what I promised myself I'd do, what I even thought about something, how much easier would things be? I tell you it would make my filing system easier. I seem to change that every week or two so discover important, meaningful items that would have been pertinent to various tasks and activities LONG after their time has passed. Maybe I need a filing blog ... note to self.
So, almost a year ago, this is what I wrote:
My blog, I have been forced to remind myself, is a way of maintaining some writing discipline away from work constraints. It has a purpose but one known only to me. That’s ok. If anything, in 2009 I hope to use it more constructively as a place to explore some thoughts and as a workroom. This is, I suppose, my online shed. Maybe I should redesign it to look like one? I have a constant supply of sticky notes and paper scraps with words, events, websites, ideas scribbled on them. My blog should be the place I pull this stuff together, research and investigate the various threads and chart the results of this activity, similar to the way a home handyman might gather design ideas and bits of woods to try and knock something together.
Hmmm … sure did sound like a good idea at the time. I still have the sticky notes. Pussy Prue is sitting on two of them now. If I look back at some of my postings I find I have investigated some thoughts and ‘leads’ from things I’ve been reading and listening to. Because I do have a shocking memory and am prone to speed reading and multi-tasking this has been good because I’ve actually stopped and looked a little more closely at certain things, researching them for a post and, therefore, understanding them a little better. I will stick to this for now but try and improve the writing.
I presented the first chapter of my book at my writing group last week and the response was warm (they’re nice, nice people) but I dreamt that night that I had a beautiful, sweet and loyal dog that I kept at a caravan park and visited every couple of weeks. When there I slathered it with love and attention, then just jumped in the car and took off, expecting it to fend for itself. I think the dog is my personal, creative writing. I focus in for a minute, get absorbed in character and plot and so forth and then wrack off back into the ‘real’ world and don’t think of it again for ages. Every thing comes before my writing, even drinking alcohol, going grocery shopping and watching crap TV. I know this is not good. I’ve read Habits of Highly Effective People for God’s sake!
Question: Can I change this situation? Does it matter?
Answer: Only to me but, then, doesn’t 90 per cent of what happens in our lives only really matters to us anyway?
Ooooh … deep.
PS: Mrs Underhill Book Club on hiatus til New Year. Nominate a book for us to read over summer.
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