Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Writing -- Vomiting to see what you've been digesting

Ah, now that I have your attention...(actually, yes, I do intend to compare writing in a blog to the unpleasantness of vomiting). Although this applies to any action one takes when spewing forth words. It would not strictly apply to writing your words down.

Vomiting has a seriously disruptive feeling attached to it -- I assume you agree -- as it is an involuntary reaction to eliminate from the orifice that we generally enjoy using for assimilating nutrition. (I will continue to sound like Commander Data giving a lecture on frail humanity facing Borg captors, yes...). Sometimes trying to "be an author" has that Lost Weekend feeling to it. This is very true when you challenge yourself to be present more consistently on your blog, but when checking the calendar, you find that a week and a half has passed. Commitments in that "other reality" (uh, Reality: also known as daily grind) sap away at that thing called Time, and some months we are blissfully unaware of the affect. The next two months, however, most are hyper-aware and frankly, anxious, that holiday prep fever will sap every bit of authorly life-force.

So, this is a warning, knowing this in advance does not make the struggle any less unpleasant. Because now, being aware that one's attention will be drawn away in ten different directions for the next sixty days or so, an author has to be willing to forcibly write. Pick any damned thing to write about just to "fill" the airy space of the blog which could be otherwise neglected for fifty-six days rather than the Octoberly eleven.

It is also easy to converse in this mindless manner, and I am making the suggestion right now to any one reading -- the holidays are not the best time to be speaking your unfiltered mind. This is how and why I can compare writing/speaking to vomiting during this time. It is said, famously in the "Aging" chapter in John O'Donhue's Anam Cara, that Winter is not so much a time of death as it is contemplation. Nature should reflect inward on itself for a season so that all its new life after that season is truly new and fresh.

So, take care in all the interactions and pastimes you take into yourself and digest in the next two months. I promise I will. That way, what I write here, it will have thoughtful meaning behind it.