Random thoughts lately, always bring me back to writing. It's not that I'm so great at it the reading public needs me. It's not that at all. Nothing altruistic about it when I sit to consider it. I can only hope that there is an audience of more than me for anything I write.

So, Why Bother to Write

Instead, I write because it burns in me to record ideas that come to me. Crazy, zany, funny things that cross my mind during the most unrelated events. Serious, contemplative, existential, solutions to world disorder, chaos, depravity. Many of them I may never share but they need to come out of my fingers, to paper or the screen. They just must — when I can manage.

Not Capturing is Not an Option

Many of them I have missed, as life stuff gets in the way of me stopping to record them. Either I'm working too hard on stuff, or too tired from working so hard on stuff. And then there's that silly, passive, arrogant voice that says, Oh, it'll keep until later, when I have more time. But now this argument can't seem to keep me at bay. The ideas are currently yelling to me to attend, to give them their space on the page, and I aim to try to assist them.

I have captured a strange piece about dying. Really, only a piece because it was a line or two, a person saying good-bye. It came to me before 6:00 a.m. and I got it. Don't know what will come of it but that's beside the point. The point is that I captured it. It occurred to me how out of practice I was at this when I wrote down the idea. There are two others that I want to write down when I am finished here, as they are percolating in my head.

This morning, when I visited my poetry blog, I realized I hadn't posted anything in the entire month of September. That's amazing! Especially when I look at the poems that I have in my notebook. I've done better on my other blog, since I'm focusing on writing about books I read. But, that's sporadic too. I have hope.

My Realizations

I choose. My daily life threatens to keep me away from writing all the time. My choice must be to not let that happen. I'm making active choices to write, now to capture the random thoughts for later use, like I used to. It takes a measure of defiance I never needed before. My almost dogmatic attention to work and learning and doing other things seems to be in direct conflict with the thing that calls me sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly, but continually either way.

Stuff is continual, not continuous, right? My determination comes in waves. I think it's always there, only I can ignore it better at some times than others. You see, sometimes I have it in me to defy everything, to take the time and space I require to record and later flesh out the ideas I'm lucky enough to capture. Other times, I live with a procrastination that would rival those among us who are most lackadaisical.

My plan: I'm gonna try to go with the flow, without sacrificing all my writing to the rest of my life activities. When the ideas come seemingly without ceasing then I will try to keep up with them. When they ebb, then I will focus on the ideas I already have.

My concerns: First, what if I get started with collecting and pursuing my ideas and then they just won't stop? I don't know that I can manage to make everything happen without sacrificing something that I need. That's a scary proposition. And it leads me to my second concern. What if I am the reason that ideas ebb now, giving me time to focus away from writing? It could be that my fears are the architect of my roller-coaster writing rhythms. (I do enjoy the randomness of tangential thought.)