The One Where I Blog About Blogging: Part 1

I recently read that the ideas you think about immediately before falling asleep and just as you wake are the parts of your life that you love the most or that you are the most troubled by.  If that statement is true, then I have a deep concern for writing.  I think about it every single day.  It is the filter through which I process my life...day in and day out, like it or not.  When I lay down, after I've done a final sweep of digital media, said good night to Kevin and turned off the news, my brain begins to write about my day.  I don't just think about the events that happen, I process them through my writers "voice."  I find myself revising my words as they float about in my head, working through the perfect phrasing and diction while almost always trying to unify each of my days through some sort of theme.  It sounds crazy doesn't it?  That's because it is; and then, when I wake up, I do it all again.  My brain is always, always, always writing.  Not thinking...writing.  Drafting, revising, editing and forever considering publication, and it's that "publication" that seems to weigh heaviest on my mind.  But, understand that when I say publication I do not mean that someone will suddenly happen upon my intermittent, mediocre blog and tell me how spectacular my writing is while offering me an advance on my first memoir; instead, my version of publication is simply purging those thoughts and putting the words to "paper" and getting them out of my head.

I try to sit down and write when I can, but the whole wife-mom-teacher thing seems to get in the way.  Plus, the simplicity of my mental drafting is much preferred to the actual work of doing it.  There have been many days where I have started a blog post only to never finish it, which makes my blogger dashboard look like this:


Draft, Draft, Draft, Draft.  Those are my thoughts started and never finished...it seems like that is a commentary on my life.  It is a luxury to finish what I start these days, even though my head is full of my "handwritten" drafts.  Here are some of the blogs I would have written if life had let me make it to the keyboard:

1. The beauty of Connor's eyes when he smiles: breathtaking joy.  I am sure that I will still write this one someday.
2. My take on not getting the English Supervisor's position: written in the vain of Garth Brooks' "Unanswered Prayers" or Train's "Bruises" [insert deep sigh of satisfying relief].
3. Ode to my Husband: the fact that I am not a fan of digital PDAs makes this one difficult to write...Kevin knows how very awesome he is to me, but sometimes I want to share that with the world.
4. ND vs. Pitt - The Tale of Jimmy's Birthday Surprise: what a day of love and celebration, peppered with a bit of awkward family fun, followed with a completely unsatisfying win.
5. January 1, 2013: I will devote this year to simplicity, loving others and moving out of my home [subtitled: the day I packed my kitchen].

I know that I haven't finished the blogs on my dashboard or started many of the ones in my head because my idea wasn't unified, or my perspective wasn't witty enough, or the topic was too heavy for me to accurately explain my ideas.  Plainly, I just didn't think it was "good enough"...so I just stopped.  Left them there to dangle, unsure if or when I'd publish them.  So, I've decided that today the lingering drafts will be published, incomplete and inadequate as they may be.  You can find them here, in part 2.

There is always this hope that when I sit at the keyboard the words will flow from my fingertips with the same flourish and style that they carry when they are simply thoughts, but unfortunately I find myself stumbling and backspacing again and again.  I am constantly aware that my brain is telling me to write...so now I think it's time to listen.  My goal is that I will start to make time to clear my head while sitting at the keyboard...not everything I write will be as refined as finished as I would like it to be, but that's going to have to be okay.  After all, I am only writing my blog, not my first memoir...yet.