Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Learning to write again

As I've tried and tried to blog, I've become very frustrated. I have several posts that are in process, yet to be published. Why aren't they published? Because I can no longer write.
I used to write. I think that I used to write well. I used to dream of being an author. Writing children's books or short stories. I used to believe that I had a novel some where in me.

I would write for hours. I had notebooks filled with poetry -- mostly adolescent angst. I loved to journal, though I was never very consistent with it.

Now, I have a hard time putting words into sentences. I can't seem to put my thoughts down on paper. I have a couple of ideas why I can no longer write.

First, I'm out of practice. I've spent the last 10 years writing code. It's simple. It's logical. It flows. It's like a writing a recipe. This part has to come before that part. There is no transition necessary. It's all nicely put together with curly braces and semi-colons. There is no question about whether or not I need a comma. If it's not syntactically correct, it doesn't compile. It's easy, and it's not all that creative.

Second, I stopped reading. And I love to read. I love to read almost anything. I would read until the wee hours of the morning. I would read and read and I wouldn't stop, not until the last page was turned. I didn't get any sleep. So, I made myself stop reading. A couple of years ago, I started reading again. (Goodnight room. Goodnight moon. Goodnight cow jumping over the moon...) And while Goodnight Moon is an excellent book -- one of my personal favorites -- it isn't exactly stimulating for me.

I want to be a better writer. I want to encourage my boys to love reading. So, I've decided to read more. I'm going to dedicate some time to myself during the day to read and write. I'll use my blog as a test ground for my writing.

Bear with me. Hopefully, it will get better.

1 comment:

Jamie said...

Thanks so much for stopping by and commenting at my blog! It's always fun to find new places on the internet to visit. If you love writing, keep going! You just need to keep doing it, and it will all come back. I think that's the most important thing for us to remember in so many ways. Especially as moms and homemakers. We may not cook the perfect dinner, but as long as we keep at it we *will* get better. The same is true with keeping house. I love the saying I read on FlyLady's blog onetime "Housework done imperfectly still blesses my family." Don't feel inadequate because you aren't perfect, just keep trying! Every little thing we do helps. I look forward to reading more from your blog in the future, so get posting!