Rhythms are the Best for Working -- part 2


Blogging for the last two weeks has been a wonderful exercise for me. Though I still am not working according to a regular schedule, I am definitely writing every day. And that has begun to pay off.

I still haven't been able to work according to a regular schedule. But one thing is clear -- this blog is pushing me to write something every day, and the practice is starting to pay dividends.

I started this blog two weeks ago yesterday, and except for two days I have written one or more entries every single day. Knowing that even just one person might be checking me out for the first time, or checking to see if there are any new entries, helps me to keep going. And now that I've added the visit counter -- which I figured out how to do only last Saturday -- it's exciting to see the numbers go up. Yesterday I had eight unique visitors and 65 page views. So even though I have received direct responses from only a few people, I know this blog is being read.

That's so different from writing in a journal. I haven't been able to keep a journal for any length of time for many years. From 1972 to 1990, I was a fairly steady journal keeper. Though I have to admit that a good deal of that, especially after 1982, actually consists of letters. That's from back before e-mail. I have saved almost all of my e-mail -- certainly everything I ever wrote -- but a lot of it now is in inaccessible files because the software is outdated. I could probably get to those files if I worked at it, but the process is pretty overwhelming.

It is clear that I do better when I am writing with a real audience in mind. In essence, these entries are letters to my readers -- some of whom I know; many of whom I don't.

As with a journal, blogging helps me to nail down ideas that would otherwise disappear into thin air. Like what I am writing right this moment. I have been thinking about the journalling process for a very long time. I used to be very nearly obsessive about it. When I flew from California to go to graduate school in Iowa in January of 1984, I hand-carried a 40-pound suitcase full of my journals and stories (mostly journals). (No way was I going to trust those to the baggage handlers! If I lost them I would feel I had lost part of my life!) By the time I moved to Rochester in 1990, that had grown to two 24-inch deep file drawers. And then, it seems, I stopped, or at least slowed down considerably. I even stopped writing long letters, and later e-mail. For the most part, anyway.

I know that a goodly part of the reason I stopped writing so much was that I finally had some really good friends to talk to on a regular basis, and that meant I didn't have to write everything down in order to not feel isolated. I originally started writing, way back in 1972, because I didn't know how to talk to people. Really! Anyone who knows me now would have trouble imagining that, because I certainly have no trouble talking now. In fact, I am sure sometimes I talk way too much! But back then, the written word was my only route to being heard by anyone on any subject that really mattered to me.

Blogging also helps me to organize my thoughts, since I have to give each post a title, a category, and an abstract. Drawing up my list of categories also helped, even though I haven't written on every category yet. More than once,unsure what to write about, I turned to my categories and said, ok, what do I have to say right now about any of these? And that kept me going. There is so much more to be done! So many more stories to tell...

Today I picked up a short story I began more than 30 years ago, and just started writing. The daily practice of putting fingers to keyboard is approaching the habitual now, and the words seem to come much more freely. Dialogue, even -- something I used to find so troublesome. I am aiming to have an entirely new story to submit to my tri-weekly writers group, the first new fictional story (as opposed to revision or memoir) I will have written since 1979.

So I better get back to it!

Posted: Fri - March 5, 2004 at 09:24 AM          

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