Day Seven – and all is well. I’ve almost managed to stay on track, although sleeping hours have been reduced to around five hours a night. My pre-sleep hours are devoted to writing, editing, adding photos, making sure all my SEO ducks are in a row, and publishing my daily-post. But I’m loving it, because I love writing.
One of the biggest challenges for me is avoiding diahorea, of the writing variety. I just get carried away and can’t stop myself. I’m sure I could talk underwater with a mouthful of marbles, and my writing is no different. Just give me an iPad and keyboard and walk away. I’ll still be there, typing away, when you get back. The word ‘challenge’ means that something is going to be difficult, right? My challenge is sticking to the KISS Principle (Keep It Short, Stupid). I get as carried away with writing, as I do with talking. It just happens! And that is why the July Ultimate Blog Challengs is so worthwhile.
I Wouldn’t Do It, If I Didn’t Love Writing
In the morning hours, I read other people’s posts and add comments. There is no sense spending hours writing a blog, if nobody reads it. And the only way anyone can be sure that we have read their post, is to leave a comment. A few words of encouragement can go a long way towards staying on track.
At night, I write. And any spare moments of the day, I write. I love writing! Being able to craft words into a sentence that sounds okay, is what keeps me writing. Re-living events of my life, describing places I have travelled to, and honouring the people I have met on the way, keeps me writing. I still have thousands of memories stored away, so I’ll be writing for a long time yet.
Writing is a solitary confinement.
I like being alone with my thoughts; the only noise being the tapping sound coming from the keyboard, as words transfer to the screen in front of me. Life might go on around me, but I am oblivious to it, whilever I am engrossed in writing. And that could be the only problem with writing – I need ‘alone-ness’.
Sometimes I take my iPad and keyboard to a cafe, drink lots of coffee, and write. Apart from greeting the Barista and ordering my coffee, I can sit in perfect solitude. People come and go, and the screen in front of me is the barrier that protects me from conversation, when I need the quiet.
What About Writer’s Block?
When the words are trapped in my head, the silence is deafening. Sometimes coffee, or something stronger (like, chocolate), can be the elixir to dissolve the mental block, but not always. I am lucky enough not to suffer from writer’s block very often, but when it does happen, it can be terrifying. The sound of the clock, ticking away the minutes that will bring the deadline crashing down on you, doesn’t help. Not a word is found as you search the nooks and crannies of your mind. Nothing!
The harder you try, the more elusive the words are. And if you are lucky enough to have a phrase or sentence pop into your blank mind, you shudder, “Really?, that’s the best you can do?”. There are times when no words are better than the half-baked suggestions that the other part of your brain offers. You know, that part of the brain that stores all the desperate words, for emergencies, when you can’t think of anything else to say?
There must be times when my readers pray that I would have writer’s block, at least once in a while. Until that happens on a consistent basis, I will apologise for the over-wordiness of my blogs. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to make them shorter. Every time I think I’ve finished a blog, ‘Poof!’, another thought pops into my head. And off I go again – another very long blog.
Since we are all bloggers in this Challenge:
- what is your remedy for freeing up the creative flow, when everything else fails?
- how do you meet the deadlines of the Blog Challenge?
- am I in a minority, or majority of people who love writing?
I would love to hear your thoughts.
Until then, I’ll just keep writing, because I love writing!