Unordered Thoughts On Writing

Writing is bad.

I kept a handwritten journal from the age of sixteen until it petered out when I was about twenty. Then when almost thirty-one (1989) I started again, in a password-protected computer file. Switched from WordPerfect to Word when switched to Windows in, oh, '92. Nearly two and a half million words in all.

I've slowed down the journaling quite a bit of late. It may stop altogether. For me, journaling is bad.

I use it to process thoughts, to posit ideas and positions, record events, expand on experiences and feelings, and work through alternate scenarios. The reader-self I am writing to is a confessor of sorts.

Bad for two reasons. It takes up valuable time (as this is now). Much worse, it can serve to amplify and give legs to negative thoughts and feelings, attitudes that are not helpful to me.

Sure, I could use it for the opposite. But think: I don't write in order to program my life. Writing is a reflection of life. It therefore stands to reason that I will spend most energy writing about the things that obsess me. This gives those obsessions and negative concerns and fears and so on a lot more life and energy than they should have. Writing and writing and writing about things, while often helpful in developing clarity, mostly just keeps me down in my pit.

I am really tired of being down in my pit.

Blogging is different in that I try not to write much about the real stuff going on. I've done that, but what I've shared is a mere fraction; and I'm so frickin' busy, I really can't make time for that either. Another purpose for me is to tell my few readers something of what's going on (and there's a lot going on -- last night was so rare an evening home I totally blew off the work I needed to do and vegetated), but really, who cares? Do I really need to tell stories, show pictures? No.

That's what Facebook is for at the present time but I typically resist the temptation there too.

(I have two accounts, one for family and high school and writerly peeps -- in other words, my "real" self -- and another whose persona is all about Burning Man and related social events. That's where the more interesting pictures are. The split simplified my life. There isn't a lot of overlap. Last pic on "real" was me and my boy at the 6th NLCS game. Last pics on the alt were taken at someone's apartment last Friday, a night I got so drunk -- a very rare event -- I slept on her couch. Yeah, not so interesting.)

I write a lot of emails. That's okay because it's focused on an individual and/or the current state of the drama we're helping each other through.

So anyway, writing and blogging, not very meaningful and a big time sink. I've also lost some of my former ability to sit still.

I wanted to be a writer mostly because I liked inventing worlds and because I read a lot and admired writers and because it was a career you could do all by yourself and that didn't require a college degree. Wanting to be a writer then became a sort of habit. The habit was re-awakened when I discovered misc.writing. A lot of other bullshit was awakened then too -- online debate, online living. Nothing healthy there either. Not much harm, really; but the people I know who never fell into living online are, in my opinion, a lot better off.

No, I don't want to expand on that. Maybe living online is bad only for me, because it encourages and amplifies my natural self-centeredness and introversion. The rest of you are fine.

But a lot of my introversion is an outgrowth of childhood family dynamics and the sort of woman those dynamics pushed me towards. I still find myself feeling oppressed and silent when with my mother or my cousin or my ex-wife. But when away from those people, I'm pretty god damn fun. Revelation! So my inner extrovert is finally coming out, and it has little use for time spent alone banging on a keyboard.

This is a really long and drawn out excuse for not doing NaNoWriMo. But I realized this morning that it starts in a couple days, and I haven't even been home, much less inclined to think about it, or park myself somewhere with writing materials.

Granted, a lot of why I'm never home has to do with Miss S, and sadly we are taking an undefined break of some sort, but that won't free any time. The time will be spent either seeing her anyway or chasing skirts, as I should have been doing all this time and for a zillion reasons, that ultimately have to do with the aforementioned family dynamics, was not.

So, probably no NaNo, little journaling, less blogging ... my attempt to restart at 100words didn't take ... yeah. I'm thinking "writer", as in producer of something worth paying to read, is not going to grace my epitaph.