Right now I have 27 drafts of posts started. Some are a single paragraph and others are almost complete. They sit, patiently, and they wait. Why haven't I hit publish and shared them with the world? I'm suffering from Onemorethingitis. Blogging, actually writing in general, is something I consider a "me time" activity and during the summer I feel like it's in short supply. Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Rob, Aidan and I have been having loads of fun lolling around the house and the swimming pool. We've gone to movies, visited the Shark Reef and played with my cousins for a few days this summer.
Yet when I sit down in the evenings, instead of writing I think of a hundred other things I should or could be doing. I have three Christmas projects to knit, another to scrapbook and a funny little gift I may decide to whip up for my bestie to congratulate her and commemorate her move from a workplace hellhole to what I hope will be her own personal dream castle. I keep putting writing on the back burner and the longer I avoid it, the easier it gets. The harder it is to sit down at the keyboard and let the words flow from my fingertips.
Tonight I am wide awake for the first time in a long time, so here I sit and yet a fresh topic eludes me. Thoughts float on the edges of my consciousness like wispy little clouds. I can see them, but I can't make out shapes and they're translucent and easily blown away. I have gone through every one of my drafts in an attempt to finish at least one, but for now I just can't seem to connect all the dots. I feel like an artist who has picked up her paintbrush for the first time in years, but has no clue where to begin and so I paint circles…and flowers…and stick figures until they become a picture that makes sense.
I am unorganized and scattered. My writing is a jumbled mess of half formed stories. Plot lines and characters stumble over each other like so many people rushing on and off the subway at rush hour. They brush past each other, occasionally colliding hard enough to knock each other back into their own tales, but mostly run along not paying attention to anything around them, carrying my stories with them on winding, random paths that have no end. I have every intention of going back and finishing the thought I left dangling….as soon as I finish onemorething. By the time I'm done, another idea has popped into my head and I start jotting it down only to trail off and leave everything hanging so I can finish onemorething.
Everything is stuck in my head, needing to be put to paper (or screen) and I'm afraid things are going to start leaking out soon. How much room can possibly be in my noggin? Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I took all of my characters and ideas, threw them all in a blender and mashed them all up. What would come out? Something anyone would read? Probably not. So they stay separate, contained in different documents locked inside my laptop. The many drafts? I'll finish them…as soon as I'm over my Onemorethingitis.
