Timing

Ok, so I've been doing my best to be a bit religious about writing a little something here everyday (not sure about weekends, there may not be much here on the weekends). For some reason, the time I have "chosen" is just when my daughter is waking up from her nap and I am in a bit of a mad dash to get things done before I have to bring her downstairs.

This can't continue, can it? Hmm . . . I do seem to vaguely remember that I did what I considered to be my best stuff at the last minute. The work that I created where I had plenty of time to labor over a carefully chosen word or get the description just right, I hate. Yes, I use the correct word. I hate that stuff. I wrote it. I photocopied it. I distributed it to the class. I even read it out loud. And I hated every comma, every period, every capital letter moment of it. I can't even bring myself to read these pieces in my Great Big Binder of Written Stuff. I roll my eyes and sigh and quickly turn the pages in embarrassment.

Oh sure, there are a few sentences worth saving, a turn of phrase here and there to re-use in some more acceptable piece of prose. But, my God, how I hate those pieces.

I enjoy the works I created when I had a deadline looming. Namely, it is 2 a.m. and this thing is due at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning and I haven't even written a sentence sort of piece. I had to be more efficient. I didn't have time to play around with some grandiose metaphor that the writer knew didn't work but left it in anyway because "It's creative". Overstuffed is more like it.

Which explains why I have "chosen" this time period to write. The baby is babbling to her dolls in her crib, I hear her and I know she is hungry, but patiently waiting for Mom to pop into her room. Sorry, Dear, I just need one more minute that I don't have to get this out and - "DING" the deadline clock has announced the end of its shift.


And, yeah, I like it.

-Posted by Linda

Contributor

I am listed as a contributor to this blog, but I have not done much in the way of fulfilling my blogging duty. It has been suggested to me by my sweet hubby, several times in fact, that I should do a little writing to, you know, get back into the writing swing of things.

It's hard. In my own head I have that ever present "List of a Hundred Things To Do" around the house, with the baby, next week, before I die . . . and daily writing just is not on any of those lists. Why? I don't know. Well, I'm sure I know but I don't want to take the time to think about it. Which is an odd sort of state to be in. You see, I went to college to major in writing only to discover that I had to "join" the writing major with something. So my Bachelor's Degree is in English/Writing (with a rather heavy emphasis on writing); and yet, I have done very little since I graduated.

One would then think that writing would come so easily to me, that I would want to write my hand off, that I would want to expound on something, anything in writing. And, between you and me, it is all true. I have allowed my writing pen to go dry out of fear of failure. Which is funny considering how anyone who chooses a life in the arts - painting, dance, theater, and even writing - is often faced with constant rejection. I know this and yet, even here in this medium, I am worried (but not so worried that I chose this rather than put pen to paper and have the ability to hide my writing away in some drawer).

Well, so what? I guess I have finally decided that I need to take a little bit of time out of my day to do a little something creative for me. Which may at first sound selfish (and indeed as I write this I feel it is so), but it is not. Every night that I put my daughter to bed, one of the last things I tell her after I whisper "goodnight" is "It is time to go to sleep and dream, my dear, and promise me that you will dream big".

Well, how can I tell my daughter to dream big when I don't even dream little. The latest dream I had was eating 3 chicken tacos for dinner. I kid you not. That is the dream I had last night. wow. Mind-blowing, I know. So after thinking about this taco dream all morning (yes, I really did), I have decided to write again.

I'm not sure what you'll find here. Maybe a creative bit here and there, a poem or two, the latest news on my ever growing little girl, perhaps a rant on something that irks me. Who knows, maybe those chicken tacos will turn into something bigger; I'll be sure to let you know.

-posted by Linda (the hubby needs to give the wife another tutorial)