Pickle Dreams

I saw March today, and she asked me how my writing is coming, and I told a little white lie. Which is silly. Lying to one’s therapist, that is. But saying, “Oh yes! I’ve written once in all these months that we’ve talked about it!” seemed pa-the-tic. So I said that I’d started, and was doing just a little.

See, it was a white lie.

But actually, talking with March made me realize what some of the barriers have been to stop me from diving right in. Two things: first, I get stuck on wanting to know where my writing is going to end up before I’ve even started. It’s my obsessive need to plan. Just enjoy the freakin’ journey, Rona! You may end up somewhere more lovely than you could have imagined.

Second, there are so many thoughts swirling in my head – where does one begin? If I could have one thing that doesn’t really exist, it would be Dumbledore’s pensieve (although for it to be useful, I suppose I’d need two things that don’t exist: a pensieve and a wand). I’d love to remove the excess thoughts from my brain and sort through them at my leisure. To organize a lot of disparate fragments into a cohesive argument… belief… theology….

Of course, that’s what writing is, no? Extracting ideas from our minds, and placing them on the page (screen) so that we can make sense of them? That is, if we’d let ourselves start with the finish in the fog around the bend. Who knows what magical discoveries we might make?

…which is a little ironic, since I just decided to start a blog. I have no current plans to tell anyone of its existence – just set down a few thoughts on (virtual) paper. A little exercise. My writing muscles are as devoid of tone as my triceps (eegads).

I’m certainly a blog reader. There are four I read with relish: two by friends, one for fun, and one on philanthropy. There’s one that’s now gone that I miss. And there are a few others I visit from time to time. But by and large I’m an Internet lurker. A facebook voyeur, rather than an exhibitionist. An infrequent tweeter (and that’s in my “official” capacity, at that). Someone who faithfully watches “The Daily Show” the day after, then wonders (somewhat scornfully, I admit) who exactly has the time or the interest to comment – nay, even chat – about Jon’s latest guest.

So why, if I’m evidently averse to wading into the WWWeb, am I writing this in that very medium? Why not MS Word, or the mostly empty notebook that sits in my nightstand? Because I may just change my mind, and I like to be prepared [gasps of shock from all who know me well].