WRITE WHAT I WANT TO

(This was the best generic photo I could find for this post...LOL...doesn't she look like me? With no computer. And RED wine. And a couple other visual details that might be different...)

So I have this title I wrote down a couple of weeks ago: “Write what I want.” I think I stole it from a painter’s blog, the painting version of the line: paint what I want. It seemed resonant and important. It was going to be an empowering topic.

Now I am scared of it! Or made lazy by it.

I am only working with this topic because the other titles on my inspiration list are about topics I am certain will be hard to write about – Sarah work/family angst – and this one looked easier.

(Sitting back in chair, deep breath)

Right now the problem is that I don’t know what I want to write. Sometimes I know what I want to write but…I’m not energized enough to dig into the topic or I worry too much about my audience. Those are problems too, since they keep me from writing what I want.

In the bigger picture, I liked the topic/title because it seemed like a battle cry for Expression, Creativity, Turn Off the Editing Voice, Don’t Worry about Saleability…

I guess it also means, why doesn’t someone pay me a big salary, with benefits, to sit home and write what I want when I want to write it. Yes this reads as silly on paper but I am not the only one to have this creative dream!

I believe I intended the writing on this topic to be serious, about motivation, psychology, memory, personal history…maybe listening to music and drinking wine and Friday night after a loooooong week are not the right environment for such lofty goals.

I should probably turn off the music – I don’t usually write with music, unless it’s a wild topic or I’m just editing/publishing. Noise short-circuits parts of my brain that I need for the deep-thoughts writing. Music is fun though. Especially music on Friday night with wine.

(Music off)

(Can’t I click over to Facebook for a break from working on this? NO!)

In the corporate world we think of short- and long-term goals, sometimes broken down into little bits, 30-day, 60-day, etc. I have Writing Wants for the long term and the short term. Long term: Get things published, be famous. But what’s inside of that is that I want to share my inner self with people who connect with what I say. I’ll always love the philosophy that when you read, you don’t feel so alone. Especially when you connect with what you are reading, you don’t feel so alone. I actually made a written note to myself in 1982 (yes I was a young puppy), a mission statement before I knew what a mission statement even was – heck the term may not have been invented yet – that I wanted to make readers feel better about themselves by sharing myself with them.

Short-term: I would like to write without picking myself apart (“you suck, nobody cares”) and feeling tired and lazy and cracking the whip. Deep breath, that sentence felt good to type!

Slightly longer than short-term: I would like to be more regular with the blog and more confident with it. More in-the-mood, stream-of-consciousness. Less editing voice! Less worry about readers!

Painter David Larsons Evans’ blog states, “I paint because it’s a nuisance not to.” (http://davidlarsonevans.blogspot.com/)

I think the gut-level Sarah feels that way about writing. If I don’t write fairly often and about a lot of things, I get locked up. Stopped up. Not-writing is not what I am meant to do...it means I’m off my track. BUT I so rarely do it – write every day, freewheeling choices of topics – I have the same old obstacles, worrying about whether I am in the mood for a topic or have the energy to finish it (who says I have to finish?, I only have to start!), or whether I am a good enough writer yet to tackle it.

Many painters redo old canvases – writers can do that too.

Yay, this post is getting at least a little empowering! Maybe a bit preachy though…I don’t like that, and I will definitely not like it when I reread it. Oooooh, I am a cruel rereader: “Why did you say THAT?!”

And another time category, longer than slightly longer than long-term: I would like to find a way…have a way occur to me, fall into my lap or however it may happen…to get the blog habit into a project-writing habit that could be a book. I have several books in development. And notes to be added to those books in development. These are kind of collecting dust right now.

Most of the time it feels like all I can do to create a blog post. Occasionally post, not even regularly. Which is depressing, and as I have said, a blocked Sarah.

OK, let’s go back to the gut – lots about breathing in this post, I know, but here I insert a deep breath in and out:

I want to write…

(Music back on as an hopeful aid…will check Facebook as a hopeful break…)

(That was a good long break – opened more wine, also Craig came home and took over my computer to check his FB page…)

I thought of more words I wanted to write but not sure I can collect them now…here goes something…

Tonight I wanted to write, period. I wanted to blog and I wanted to publish it and send it to my subscribers and whoever else happens across it. I want to keep wanting to write and trying to write and trying to write better.

I also remind myself there can always be a part 2, a revision, an apology, whatever – a redo. Deep cleansing breath! Perfection is not necessary. (Smaller breath but still cleansing.)

(I just had another long Facebook break including listening to a video someone posted…I think I am done blogging for tonight…)