29. "Timing Is Everything" - Part 2

"The time to begin writing an article is
when you have finished it to your satisfaction.
By that time you begin to clearly and logically
perceive what it is that you really want to say."
~ Mark Twain

What I've been meaning to say, for over three weeks, now, is that I've lost my momentum -- and not just in my writing. To be quite frank, both my muse and I are constipated.

Momentum is a curious entity. It -- and the lack of it -- are quite contagious, giving it both positive and negative qualities. :lol: Sounds very human, doesn't it? Hmmm... a "human" aspect of the universe ... or a universal aspect of ... . Hmmm ... I was going to say "humans", but I think "just about everything" would be more accurate. See, there I go -- off on a tangent, again. Have to watch that. Tangents, while sometimes fascinating (at least to me) can mess with my momentum.

Momentum is "a timing thing". It both affects and is affected by timing. And I pretty much blew mine out of the water by not keeping up my writing when nanopubye.org's server was hacked.

My basic idea, at the time, was a good one -- simply continue my writing on another blog site. But then I went off on a tangent. I got it into my head that I needed to take all the blog entries I'd posted on nanopubye.org and post them on blogger.com, first. My two non-writing days, when the nanopubye site first went down, was bad enough -- but recoverable, because I still had some momentum left and could have recouped those two lost days and kept going without too much of a problem -- if ... if I'd hunkered down and "stuck to business". But I allowed myself to be sidetracked.

I allowed myself to be sidetracked by my fear that if I immediately started posting new blog entries on the new site -- my posts end up out of order when I got around to posting the old entries afterward. So, I got it into my head that I had to transfer the previous posts first. I worked three days on getting my old material "just right" on the new blog site -- using my writing momentum/energy to redo what had already been done elsewhere, instead of making writing progress. It was the equivalent of stopping to edit the first draft of a book before it’s even a quarter written -- a sure-fire recipe for disaster, especially for someone who loves to edit and evidently doesn’t know when to stop. [:rolls eyes:, :big sigh:]

With the dying remains of the little momentum I had left after all that, I managed to write and post one blog entry** on the new site after getting all the old stuff "just so". That was it. That’s all she wrote for the last 21 days.

In the meantime, NaNoPubYe.org revived and I started several times to write another blog entry for either or both sites, but just couldn’t seem to pull it off. My mind was full of the chaos of unfinished thoughts and the confusion of contradictory emotions. To say I was not centered or grounded would be a gross understatement. I think it was Nietzsche who said:

"You need chaos in your soul
to give birth to a dancing star."

. . . but it takes time . . . and energy . . . to get the momentum going, even if only for a blog post. It is written that the universe -- let alone the stars -- was created with a word. Well, I’m not God, so it takes me quite a few words to create just a blog post. Writing begets more writing -- words beget more words . . . until a momentum is created that can sustain itself.

"Restlessness and discontent
are the first necessities of progress."
~ Thomas A. Edison

I was discontent with the post I wrote on August 8th. It was "OK" as far as it went, but reading it later made me feel unsettled -- as though I had not said what I meant to say, but couldn’t, for the life of me, put my finger on exactly what that was, for sure. Several times in the last 21 days, I would sense that I had a piece of it, see its shadow, feel its presence somewhere close on the edges of my mind; and I would begin to write a new post that would say what I had really meant to say, but hadn’t. Nothing came of those writings. Each one petered out like the one before it -- leaving me as confused and frustrated as I was when I started, if not more.

I didn’t begin to make progress with it until I wrote a personal journal entry about it. The fog in my brain cleared soon after beginning the entry and I was able to write, quite simply, what I’d really meant (and needed) to say in the August 8th blog post. It wasn’t much. Just that: the momentum I had built up by writing blog entries for twelve consecutive days (7/14 to 7/29) was not enough to sustain a five-day time lapse -- a day or two, yes, but not five days. Not yet.

For most of us, it takes 21 days of practicing something before it becomes a habit -- a bona fide part of our lives. That’s reality of living as a human being on planet Earth. I disrespected that and lost much of what I’d worked so hard to gain. In my case it was 12 steps forward and 21 steps back.

It wasn’t a complete loss, though. In the process of trying to slog through my personal fog, these last three weeks, I was reminded of something else I knew, but had also disregarded. All my life I’ve thought best on paper (or in pixels on the computer screen). This has been even more important since my brain injury, which often makes me confused and lost in and amongst my own synapses. Some time ago, I was advised to write in my personal journal before writing each blog post. But I didn’t want to take the time.

Writing a blog post often takes me several hours. I am a slow thinker/writer. I figured that if I journaled before each blog, I wouldn’t have time to do anything else! So, in the interest of saving time, I didn’t follow the advise of my guides. I know now that if I had done what I was supposed to do, I wouldn’t have "wasted" the last 21 days. Am I journaling first now? You betcha’! I can’t afford another 21-day lesson like this one.

So, with the writing/posting of this blog entry, neither my muse or I are constipated, thank heavens. It was a very uncomfortable three weeks. I have again committed myself to a new 21-day challenge of writing daily blog posts, only this time I’m also committing myself to journaling before I write the blog.

"Draw, Antonio, draw, Antonio,
draw and do not waste time."
~ Michelangelo

Write, Nanette, write, Nanette,
write and do not waste time!

Take care, Y'all, and… Write On!
~ Nanette

* 28a. The "a" signifies that this is an "alternate" post -- different than the one posted earlier (8/08).

© Nanette Y. Francis, 2005. All Rights Reserved.