On Writing (and the Lack there of) – A Review

Hello. Sorry for the lack of stuff. Let’s talk about it.

So, the author Ray Bradbury had a pretty cool way to make sure he never ran out of ideas. He would sit down and write out as many nouns as he could think of. And then he’d go through his list and put two different nouns together until an idea came up and then he’d write. Sometimes he would just look for a pattern in the list and that became a story.

The guy really loved nouns.

Back then writers had to be prolific. Career writers had to produce quality work and pitch it monthly to different magazines. Obviously, novels were still being written and published, but America wasn’t looking for Science Fiction novels yet. They would be soon, thanks to Bradbury of course.

I could talk about Ray for hours. But that would be beating around the bush. We’re all here to talk about me.

My process is not too dissimilar to Bradbury’s. Instead of writing a list of nouns though, I’d have a pattern of thoughts in my head. From there a sentence or two would form that then tumbles into a blog. That’s why most of my opening lines are melodramatic.

I store those sentences in text messages actually. Did you know you could text yourself? I do it all the time. I was storing things in my notes app, but I would never check them. So, I started texting myself and leaving it unread so I’d come to the thought later. I feel like we’re never going to move on unless I give you some examples. Here’s some blogs that never were:

• On the heels of the “great resignation” a new fad is sweeping the work force, or maybe just the headlines: Quiet Quitting. What is it? Well, it depends who you ask.

• Did you know that a few years ago Swiss cheese started losing its holes? It turns out factories were getting too clean and the little bacteria that gives Swiss cheese its holes needs dirt to work.

• Humans are good at recognizing faces, but have you ever struggled to remember how you know someone? Well, it could be the lighting. There’s a phenomenon where you don’t recognize someone’s face in daylight because you’re used to only seeing them under fluorescent lights. Weird!

• Trash bags, dish soap, sun butter, oat milk.

Okay one of those might be a grocery list, but you get the point. I also sometimes text myself sentences I think sound good, here’s some:

• The center piece of my drought resistant garden is a fountain.

• I would tell you to swallow your pride, but I don’t want you to choke.

• Lightning lasts longer.

Are those anything? I don’t know. I’m sure if I took the time and had the inspiration I could spin them in any number of ways, but for whatever reason it just isn’t coming.

Reason being? I’m tired!

It’s hard to write anything these days because I spend basically all day writing for my job. My brain also doesn’t want to read too far into anything anymore. I think I just don’t think enough.

Whenever I do take the time to think about stuff, I just think about terrible things like my health or money or the usual anxious moments I relive constantly like a skipping CD.

When I look back at older blogs, I see a different version of myself. A much quieter contemplative one who didn’t have much deep going on and thus took time to look at things under a microscope. These days I want to escape, not dive deeper. And I’m not sure why, except the fact that the stuff I would be thinking deeper about is…well, kind of painful.

[Warning the next few paragraphs are written under duress and are me exposing deeper emotions and feelings than I am normally comfortable sharing. I do so only because I want to A) get it off my chest and B) explain why I haven’t been writing. I’ll take no comments please.]

I don’t want to have a pity party or anything of the sort, but right now my feet feel like they’re being pricked by thousands of tiny needles and when I go to pursue the thoughts deeper I just think about how hard it is to find someone who will help me fix that issue.

So, I guess I haven’t been writing because I don’t want my pain to color my words and become all I talk about. Because for whatever reason, I find it annoying to hear about other people’s pain and I don’t want to subject anyone else to it.

But then someone asks why I haven’t written in a while, and I don’t have an answer other than that.

I’m going to take a deep breath now.

I did write about this illness prior, but I kept the details to just one aspect of what I'm going through. For more context. About three years ago I got really sick. I lost somewhere around 50 pounds, became allergic to a bunch of foods, and started having neuropathy in my hands and feet. I'm also constantly fatigued and randomly irritable. I have been to 16 specialists, had dozens upon dozens of tests, and still know nothing about why I’m like this.

And the worse part is, nothing helps. Throughout my whole life real pain has always been emotional. So, I just wrote and that fixed the problem. I wrote and wrote and wrote and I felt better.

Any physical pain I faced was temporary and manageable. But nerve pain? What do you do? It’s hard to think deeper or feel anything but the pain. And when I try to “deal” with it, I come up against the terrible bureaucracy that is the medical system and really come back with nothing. So really, what do you do?

Soldier on, I guess. But soldiering leaves little room for writing, or so I’m told.

Anyway, I’ll be done talking about the pain and whatnot for now. I’m even getting annoyed with myself, so I hope you’re doing better than me. As a note, I’m not looking for any help dealing with the pain or treatment or anything. I’m doing fine really! It’s only my writing that’s suffering.

Anyway, I do have some great ideas for writing. I have a story that I’ve been chewing on for quite some time. I am fighting the perfectionist in me that won’t let me work on it. But I feel like it’s a really great idea. I also have that blog about Swiss cheese I could write. And that one seems like it could be a doozy! It feels like a metaphor that was just built into the world. Queue the out-of-touch Facebook posts that are wanting for a time kids used to drink out of hoses.

Anyway! That’s where I’ll call this one, I guess. I hope you liked(?) it. Is that a thing you can do when it’s just someone listing their personal texts to themselves and then complaining? I don’t know. I’ll try and write again soon. We’ll see.

Take care and thanks for reading.