I Like to Mull a While

When I start pulling out of my funk, that is when I start making my way back to my computer to put something on the screen, I've noticed I go through a process. And really it's a two part process:

1. Brain
2. Fingers

I know that sounds a little silly. So what I actually mean is that my brain always flatlines while I'm on a writing hiatus in the sense that I don't think about writing. I don't care about it. I don't spend any time paying attention to ideas or trying to harness them. But then somewhere along the way things start lighting up again, and I find that my brain revs up and mulls on things long before anything happens with my fingers.

I am not one of those people who just sits down to write because I need to write every day. I don't. And anyway, I write for my day job and always have. So I'm often doing some bit of writing anyway - even if I'm not thinking about it. But what I do find is that sometimes I do need to write. I do need to sit down. I do feel a pull to get it done now, before whatever I have to say is lost forever - although the important thing to notice is that there are always days or weeks of quiet mulling, without any action, before I get to that point.

I think there's a bit of synchronicity in this process. Have you ever paid attention to synchronicity?

Today I was driving to a meeting and I flipped on NPR. Now I haven't flipped on NPR much in the past few months because I'm just tired of the political drivel, and worn down from hearing about the depressed state of the world. But I tuned in today.

And today there was a Pulitzer Prize-winning author being interviewed about her latest book and her writing process. And it added fuel to my insides. It reminded me of what I hope to do. What I wish to do. And it was another increase in the churning that's actually been going on quietly for the last week or so (I went and jotted an idea in my notebook, randomly, maybe three nights ago).

I hope this means that I'm going to sit down to write again soon. So many people would say, "Well just sit down and write. Why don't you just do it?" But I have learned through experience that I can't control whatever this is that makes me write at all. And therefore my writing is probably always going to come in spurts and then fade out again.

It will come when I am calm enough, healthy enough, and in a good enough place to channel the messages out of my unconscious. I'm just not in that place most of the time.

And I think this is ok. People tell me it's not ok but I've decided it's ok. And this makes life a lot more peaceful because I don't have to feel like a constant failure. Or like a hopeless procrastinator. Or like a never-been (as opposed to a has-been).

Who makes the rules anyway?