I’ve been a little irritable and cranky the last few days. I was trying to figure out why, then I realized I hadn’t written anything in weeks.
Some of you are wondering why that matters. You haven’t written anything since you left school, and you don’t plan to start now. (I feel much the same way about gym class and running.) But those of you who are writers, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
I was going to take some time off for Christmas, but life got busy around Thanksgiving. Then I was terribly sick for three weeks. When I finally felt better everyone was still home for Christmas break. And today Christmas break was extended by a whopper of a snowstorm. It’s a good chance everyone will be home again tomorrow because of the weather. So my time off unintentionally turned into over a month.
At first I was OK with it. It was nice to not spend time brainstorming what to write about next. No worrying over, “Am I the only one who will find this funny?” Not wondering if that’s really where that comma goes or if that’s active or passive voice.
But this weekend I started to feel a bit like I was suffocating. People talked to me or touched me or looked at me and I snapped. You might say it was cabin fever from the snow keeping us inside, but it wasn’t. I can be perfectly happy not leaving the house for days at a time.
No, what I needed was to breathe deeply the oxygen of writing.
I needed to go into my head and put words into sentences into paragraphs and type them out on a computer screen.
The truth is I don’t blog so someone else will read it. It’s nice when people do. It’s nice when they leave comments. I like the bit of income it generates. But mostly I do it because I can’t not write. (Oh, it feels good to use a double negative again!)
This isn’t the best written piece. There’s nothing earth shattering in here. I’m a little rusty. My fingers feel a bit stiff and aren’t gliding across the keyboard very well. But having written these 406 words I feel a million times better.
I imagine most creative people, whatever their outlet, identify with this.
So all of that to say I’m back and looking forward to lots more writing in 2014!
Oh the Holidays are the worst for me. So much to do and plan and make and little time for anything else. I am getting back into the groove as well because we all got kicked by the flu too… Welcome back
I totally get it. I started this blog because my newspaper freelancing gig ran out! When I decided to go to 2 posts a week I toyed with the idea of just stopping altogether. In one way that would mean less to do, worry about, but on the other hand I would miss it way too much. Glad to see your words again!