Who's writing?

     Okay, I can't just sit and stare at this space.  First, that would be a boring way to spend a hot, and very humid, Sunday afternoon.  Second, just because my brain feels fried today doesn't mean I'm out of things to say.  Third, not writing won't help me get past the awkward feeling of re-starting a journal I haven't kept updated.

     That's part of the problem.  I feel I should somehow update everything I've done in a year.  But, gosh that's a tall order!  It's intimidating!  It would take me a month to talk about "everything" I've done in a year!  So, I'm not going to think of writing here as an update.  Problem solved.

     I seem to have gotten into a pattern with my writing projects.  I can spend a solid week engrossed in one project.  Then, I shut down, can't write another word, and stop working on that project.  I don't stop working entirely, mind you, I just shift to another incomplete project.  It all seems to balance out, but I can see why it has taken years for an author to complete a book. 

     So last week I concentrated on the physical disabilities novel.  It's a heavy piece.  Draining to write.  I tend to write short-short stories within the piece which weave together into the larger work.  It's easier to write it in chunks like that, because it is difficult to expose so many raw emotions.  The last section I was writing was about losses one goes through in life and with a disability or illness: family deaths, friends who've drifted away, loss of one's independence or dreams, loss of your former self and coming to terms with the new person you become while dealing with illness.  Like I said, heavy writing.  No wonder I do it in sections with lots of breaks in-between!

     Up to a couple weeks ago, I was deep into writing the genealogy and church history.  (I never planned on becoming a "church historian" but I seem to have become one with researching this church and the congregation!)  The good - and bad - thing about genealogy research is you can spend 8 or more hours a day making "finds" and "connections, adding to information, amassing information.  One clue leads to another clue, and so on -- until one day, you get so much information stuffed into your brain that your brain seems to not hold any more "data."  That's the bad side of making too many "finds."  The researcher (me) is forced to take a break from researching.  (I wonder if this is why one finds so many academics sitting quietly in their university offices, just thinking?  Maybe they filled up their brains too much over a few short weeks and their brains feel too stuffed?)   Think of how you felt doing a school research paper and that's how I'm feeling right now.  I just can't stuff one more name into my brain and figure out if the person is related to the larger family, and if they are, how?

     So in the off-times from those 2 projects, I turn to something else to work on.  Little by little, I am accomplishing what I'm intending to get done.

 

     Just, not today.....