I don’t do this sort of thing often, but when a dear friend, and a writer whose work I greatly enjoy, asks me to participate in something that could be fun, new, interesting, or just because they are dear to me and asked, I at least consider it… So here I am, at 4:00 am on a sleepless Monday morning, facing the questions put to me.  Many thanks for considering me, Oz. I am humbled to be thought interesting enough to share. 🙂

1. What am I working on?

Well, honestly, I’m ‘working on’ me. That’s really it. I write because the written word is a great way to communicate more slowly, more precisely, more poetically, and more lastingly than speaking aloud. The fundamentals of that idea don’t really hold up to much scrutiny these days, I suppose; there’s always video. Images, too, are lasting and rich with symbols and metaphors. I also take a lot of pictures.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I’m not sure what genre I’m in, and I don’t actually spend much time contemplating that, or related writer sorts of subjects, but I doubt my work differs significantly from the work of writers who are writing about similar things, aside from the details of who we each are, and the journey we are each on: mindfulness, meditation, healing, growth, compassion (and much, much more!). I doubt I’ve ever scratched the surface of ‘writers in my genre’ – there must be millions of people pouring their hearts into blog posts, doing their own best with growth, change and circumstances.  There must be differences to discuss, and commonalities, but they are beyond me without significant research.

One potential difference, is the lack of self-restraint regarding wordplay, I suppose. I often work oddball puns, references, weird humor, and bits of grammatical fun into my writing, and titles, and image captions tend to be a coherent and intentional part of the work, related to the body of the post very closely, although often tangentially, or from another perspective.  I have no particular concern that anyone else will ‘get it’… the bits of wordplay are more like easter eggs in code; a bit of fun for those that catch them.

3. Why do I write what I do?

Because I have to. Well, that sounds sort of dramatic, and I don’t mean it to… but what else would I write besides what I do write? That’s the not question, though, is it? Why do I write this blog from a positive perspective instead of drowning in bitterness and cynicism, perhaps? Or why don’t I write more graphically about sex, love, and romance than I do? Or even why am I so slim on pertinent details about people who may be mentioned in passing or by implication, but never quite allowed to develop as characters in a more full way?  It could be easier to break it down like that.  I write in the largely very positive way I do because it hurts to be foundering in a sea of pain, even emotional pain, and negativity is the last place I look for hope or solace; I don’t want to hurt anymore.  I don’t write more graphically about sex and love simply because I’ve used up all those words, there’s nothing more to say about the fun bits, the plumbing, the gymnastics, the heart and soul of it… this blog started at a different point in my life. There’s plenty to say about love and sex and romance in the world. My few words on that topic wouldn’t really be a value-add, and it could risk dragging the innocent reader through some of the worst of my chaos and damage. It seems unnecessary.  I also have a pretty firm personal mandate that this particular blog will remain as me-centric as it can be; my journey, my challenge, my life, my progress… it is, after all, ‘all about me’ – at least right here, for a few minutes, on a mostly daily basis, and I like to respect the privacy of friends and loved ones as much as possible. This blog is part of a healing process for me, a map of my journey, a log, and an ongoing reminder how human I am, and how commonplace my struggles are, it is not a place to lash out at others, or to be hurtful.  I’m still human; if I need to ‘just vent’ I save it for a private encrypted journal, a sort of practice range for words that are ‘like bullets’, and often find myself deleting the worst of who I am, which is a very nice feature of technology.

4. How does my writing process work?

It’s pretty simple; I’m having a conversation with myself, of sorts, contemplating what I am learning, what my understanding of the world is, and the meaning in my life and my choices.

I often start a blog post as a byproduct of other conversations, or reading and responding to something someone else wrote. When I am walking from one place to another, I write in my head, though generally poetry.  Those bits of internal dialogue often make it onto the page, here. My writing process is a tidied up look at the inner workings of my mind, and little more. I edit on the fly, and reliably fail to catch at least one significant spelling mistake when I hit ‘publish’. I have hungered to say just one particular thing in a particular way to the point of trashing thousands of written words that weren’t quite right, to try again. And again. Again. One more time, perhaps… and other mornings I sit down and bang out words that simply fall from brain to keyboard, thousands at a time without error or rewrite. Either way, it’s still that ‘conversation with myself’… or with a silent someone else, unstated, unidentified, and more important than mere identity. I write between 1000 and 5000 words a day, pretty easily. I’d write more, longer, more often…but people start noticing my lack of presence. lol

One of my daily challenges is around the simple practical missteps I struggle with because of my TBI.  As a result of that bit of baggage, I’m unsure who will be ‘up next’… I was not timely with my invitation. 😦 Having potentially let you down, I suggest that whether she chooses to participate in the My Writing Process Blog Tour, the blog of wisejourney is very worth exploring.  Certainly there have been many days when not one more step would be easily taken without her gentle words and lovely images to buoy my spirit on a difficult morning, and her blog was one of the first I began to read when I started down the path of real healing, self-compassion, and finding contentment in life.  I’m very hopeful that on June 16th, she’ll be ‘up next’.

It wouldn’t be a bad spot for a picture…

The beautiful thing about writers, is that although we are each on our own journey, and no one really has a map, sometimes the words of others function as a bit of pavement, a comfortable path for a portion of the journey.

Today is a good day for honest words. Today is a good day to remember we are each having our own experience. Today is a good day for good choices. Today is a good day for love.