Sneaking Past Writer’s Block

“Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.” Proverbs 7:3

You know that feeling where you want to write something but there are too many thoughts swirling in your mind to find a starting point and then your brain goes completely blank and all you can do is stare at the computer screen and wish for a white chocolate mocha?  Um, yeah…

Erma Bombeck once described what she called this “writer’s malady” as a condition “when your fingers show up for work and your mind is still out to lunch.”  They say the best way to beat a writer’s block is to start writing, so I’ll prime the pump by listing things I want to write about:

1. Missing my parents
2. My Korea trip
3. The first death of a first cousin
4. How my bucket list is growing longer but time and money are growing shorter
5. My troubled and troubling disciplinary academy students
6. Adopting a rescue dog
7. What it would take to build a self-cleaning house
8. Things I’m feeling too old for right now
9. My expectations then versus the reality now of being married to the same man for 49 years.
10. Why I feel embarrassed by the thought of writing fiction stories for anyone else except my mother

See what I mean? These are a few of many musings vying for articulation, but sometimes there just aren’t enough words to go around.  My mind, heart and imagination are too full.

My mom used to say at least once a month, “You should be writing more, Vivian.”  That is completely true.  I should be a better steward of the talent that God gifted and that my parents nurtured in me.  I really do enjoy the process of crafting words and giving substance to the vaporous ideas in my mind.  But finding… no, making time to sit down and start doing it – that’s a whole ‘nother issue.

I started this blog venture with the intent of encouraging others to explore and strengthen their writing proclivities.  At the back of my mind was an idea that blogging would also give me the push I needed toward more regular literary productivity.  Unfortunately, the sparsity of my posts has only served to add another layer of guilt to my list of self-identified shortcomings.

Still, it’s comforting to have a place that is all mine, where I feel free to translate thoughts and feelings into concrete language – where I can share the phenomenon of this human experience with others who are walking similar roads. I am grateful for this blogspot because it offers an outlet for jotting down mental meanderings.

A more compelling reason to set my thoughts into print is simply a desire to keep them.  I’m discovering as I age that I usually forget what isn’t written down.  Case in point:  while going through the stacks of files my writer dad left behind, I discovered several folders labeled with my name that contained printed copies of my emails to him. Yesterday I read an account of my first visit to an orphanage in Kwangju (our city of residence in Korea) where I volunteered weekly. The description was so detailed that I relived that event with vivid clarity.  If not for the written record, much of that experience would be lost. The more time that passes, the fuzzier our recollections become. Preserving them in writing maintains the memories not only for us, but also allows those who were not there to participate in the moments.

So, in spite of some blatant rambling, it looks like I have a few reflections to post after all. Take that, writer’s block!