22 May 2003

Who's on first?
   - Lou Abbott



It's difficult for me to believe that so many months have passed since my last entry in this blog.

I tell myself, "Today, I'm going to write," and then somehow, today becomes tomorrow, and tomorrow becomes next week, and ... well, you know how this goes, right?

The difference is, whether I write today or tomorrow is actually a point of pain for me, while I am certain there aren't three people in the world who depend on this site for anything other than mild, occasional diversion from whatever daily ill is afflicting them. When I don't write, I don't feel quite finished, or even quite human.

What's got me so distracted from the daily deed? My day job -- a long-term, exclusive contract for some badly needed technical writing at a local software company. I awaken every morning, go through the exercise of my brain dump (also known as "morning pages"), and then gird myself for the 50-minute or more commute to the office. At the office, I sit to my task, and for seven or eight hours daily, every day, grind out active-voiced, technically accurate, informative prose about how to use the company's product. At the end of that stretch, I climb into my car, and make the return trip home.

By the time I arrive home, my beloved wants my attention, for any number of reasons (supper, bills, conversation, entertainment, cuddling), which doesn't leave me much time for anything else. When confronted with the thought of actually sitting at the PC to write again, I find myself resistant. This is something new, and very unusual, for me. As a result, I've been reading, rather than writing. Let somebody else put the words on the page for me.

I'll be attending a writing conference in mid-June. I'm hoping it breaks the log-jam that is my resistance to the very thing that defines me -- my love of writing. Stay tuned.

Excuse me, I want to read a few pages before I fall asleep.


R.B.