11 November 2008

She scribbles.

Writing about writing is a little like listening to someone describe their every dream from last night.  It can be interesting, deadly dull, or horrific, by turns.  Yet I do both, from time to time, and today I plan to write about my writing.

I'm glad that I clicked the link from Mrs. G's blog to NaBloPoMo, because it has forced me to move my writing higher on my priority list.  This is good.  It hasn't helped me to begin fiction writing again, but I'm hoping in time that it will.

I have an addiction to an application on Facebook, called Pieces Of Flair.  Flair looks just like the buttons that we used to pin on our jean jackets in the 80s.  There is flair for everything imaginable, from your pet political causes to your pets, period.  There is a finite limit to the amount of flair that you are allowed to display, which is too bad, because as a result of being addicted to the application I have somewhere around 300 pieces of flair.  A friend sent me one about writing, which sent me on a hunt for more flair about writing.  My favorite one says, "We do not write because we want to; we write because we HAVE to."  That sums up, in one sentence, how I feel about writing.  I was driven to write when I started working on my book, like there was a tow line attached to my keyboard, pulling me back to it constantly.  I'd get lost in my writing for hours at a time.

When I talk about writing, I identify myself as a writer, but I'm not eager to point people in the direction of this blog, because I like the fact that I'm mostly anonymous.  Sure, there are a handful of people that I know in real life who are aware that I blog, and there is a small subset of that group that reads my blog.  Most of them are people that I'd feel free to say out loud anything that I've written about here.  But were my anonymity removed, I doubt that I'd feel as comfortable writing extensively about my mental illness, or some of the more gory details of that disease.  I'm "out" when it comes to my depression, comfortable with looking someone in the eye and telling them that I have a mental illness, but I don't go about proclaiming it from the rooftops.

Part of the appeal of blogging is its therapeutic benefits, allowing me to work out issues by writing about them.  Admittedly, though, a larger part of it is simple vanity; I'm tickled to death that there are people I will never meet who read what I write.

We are all writers; we all write grocery lists, notes to ourselves as reminders, memos, letters.  What then, pushes someone beyond that to writing paragraph after paragraph about imaginary people, or non-fiction?  (Vad skiljer då den tokige frän den vi kallar klok? ~ song lyrics, Mauro Socco, "Det Finns"...translation:  What separates the lunatic from those we call sane?

Where was I going with this?  Mostly that I'm just glad that I'm writing more, writing again.  Not exactly the writing that I wish I was doing, but getting closer.

3 comments:

Keetha said...

My favorite thing about Facebook, besides finding folks from high school who I hadn't thought about in years, is the sandbox application. It's a lot like the flair.

Lucy Arin said...

Keetha- for the moment, I'm staying away from that one, my addiction to Flair is bad enough. I can't afford any more time-suckage from Facebook. In fact I have Flair that says, "Facebook. Because who needs sleep?" When things slow down a bit for me, I'll check it out.

Barrett...I'm fairly suspicious that your comment is a 'bot, but the website is legit. Thanks for your interest in my writing.

Large Marge said...

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http://nophatpinkchicks.blogspot.com/2008/11/happy-birthday-no-phat-chicks.html

Keep up the great work here on Well Behaved Women! Give 'em hell!