Blogging had been the ideal run-up to a novel, but it had also become a major distraction. I would sit down to start on my novel only to come up with five different blog entries. I thought of them as a little something-something to whet the palate—because it was easier, more immediately satisfying, because I could write it, and post it, and people would say nice things about it, and I could go to bed feeling satisfied. But then I would wake feeling less than accomplished because a blog wasn't a whole story told from beginning to end. I had shelves lined with other people's prose while my best efforts were buried on a Web site somewhere, underneath a lot of blah-blah about American Idol and my kitty cat.
I have never written anything for any other reason than merely to scratch the itch -- no, it's more than that: feed the monster -- that I have to write. So I've always wasted it. I get jittery and distracted and grumpy if I don't at some point during the day or week put pen to paper. I've always kept a journal, and a page of venting about my day was enough to satisfy the monster. However, the monster cannot be tamed. He cannot be whipped into submission and forced to be productive. A page or two, or an email, or a blog entry, and he simply goes away, and writing anything more becomes impossible.
During my week off from blogging I started writing a book that's not going to go anywhere and a novella that could. But neither of those is as tragically satisfying as clicking the "Publish Post" button... the button I can click right now.
Mmmmm.
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