I'm not sure what's been wrong with me lately. What I really mean to say is that I know very well a lot of the things that have been keeping me from blogging - not just blogging but writing in general. Pryor to my present paralyzed state the work on projects I have been able to do has been half-assed and minimal, but what has me completely stumped now is why I can't bring myself to start anything, even if it is poor quality and minimal, because I know, in my head and heart, my soul, that is the only way I will come out on the other side of this cynical, depressive and spiteful state.
I have been sick since before the New Year but I have been on the computer, I am able to read, and I have new thoughts, and while I feel too bad to get up and write sometimes, there is an equal amount of times when I do feel better, but I just - won't - write.
In the twelve years since receiving On Writing as a Christmas gift from a close friend, I have many times went back and read parts of it, always making notes and doing whatever it takes to emphasize certain points. One of the things I have been doing to remedy some of what has been going on with me is getting back to reading for enjoyment, because I felt I was drowning in my own crap; the only reading I had been doing had agendas stapled to it. So this weekend I decided to read On Writing, the whole thing again, not to find any kind of answer to my problem because the answer is to just do it, but because I enjoyed the book; it's more a conversation than a book.
I would be doing both of us a terrible disservice if, after again reliving Stephen King's struggle to get back to writing and finish that very book following the tragedy that almost killed him, I did not at least attempt to put some words down. I started to say that my current state doesn't come anywhere near close to what his was, but perhaps that's not true either, because it pains me something awful to be in such a miserable state of non-activity; all I want to do is close my eyes and float away into the dark sky and disappear among the stars.
When discussing his first writing session during his recovery King notes that nothing spectacular occurred unless it was the "ordinary miracle that comes with any attempt to create something." I am not going to steal a bunch of his words to make this post memorable, just a few, the ones that might be working right now; ". . . writing is about getting up, getting well, and getting over."
After I post this and get off the internet I plan to go to my documents and continue with one of my many ongoing projects. I need to eat something first (true, not a delay), and I want to remember those ten words with every bite.
