The Writer’s Lament

Hey you writers out there, are you like me? Do you long for days of uninterrupted silence? Do you fantasize about having hours upon hours of free time devoted to your only real love: Writing?

I may be the only one who’s so obsessed…and I am obsessed. I can think of nothing better than to tap tap tap my life away if only I had the time and the silence.  Oh blessed silence…can I be the only one who craves this silence?

I don’t have to tell anyone how noisy our modern world is already and the distractions…there are so many distractions. I get started with my tapping and before you know it, life rears its inevitable head and drags me back to reality for in which there is limited room for anything remotely resembling tapping.

Here I am in a rare moment, I have all afternoon and I’m set to write about one of my favorite subjects; Being Different in -The Daily Post’s Weekly Writing Challenge and then a million things happen and there is no time.

I am a mom and I have all the responsibilities just like everyone else. I probably don’t have to tell you this; we are all busy with our lives.  Most of us don’t have much free time and there is always some minor crisis to keep me more than occupied.

I admit that at times I can be hard to live with.  I tend to be lost in thought about something or another and there tends to be a lot of something or another’s swimming around in my half-crazed brain.  l admit I get pent-up and rather testy when I can’t get the opportunity to write…and like a junkie who needs a fix, once I get what I crave, I’m happy again. I do admit it’s an affordable addiction and who knows, perhaps all this craziness will pay off in the end?

I’m sure most writers and artists in general are a little on the obsessive side.  I mean I could name names but why bother. We all know this is true…and really when I get to think about it….even you; if you are any kind of writer at all, I bet you are a bit crazy too just like the rest of us…and that you know that I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I guess I should be grateful. If I had it my way, I’d probably tap tap tap my way to oblivion…..I would be going a mile a minute..faster and faster and then suddenly I would just explode: KA-BOOM!

I could see the scene now…my spent carcass slumped over a burned-out laptop, dirty coffee cups and piles and piles of printed word surrounding me….What a mess…

OOPS….

I guess I exploded before I could write my entry for the Weekly Writing Challenge:

…and now for something completely different….  Hey! That’s DIFFERENT–I wrote about not writing what I was supposed to write about and then I exploded!That’s DIFFERENT!

Perhaps that will do…

MUCH HAPPINESS,

Strawberryindigo.

NOTE:

I have been off “adventuring”and have been limited on time, that is why I haven’t been posting much. I am not AWOL.  This is only temporary and I will be up and running at full speed in a couple of weeks.

I look forward to catching up with our visits after all this is over. I will be back full of wonderous tales about my “exotic” adventures.

The Diary of a Mad Blogger DAY 366

Madness

It has been 366 days since I published my first post and joined this wonderful world of the real and the surreal: the blogosphere. 

 I started this blog on a lark with no real idea or theme.  No organization or any kind of plan whatsoever. I was new to cyberspace and not technical in the least bit, fortunately, I can usually find some humor at my feeble attempts to do something, which can be often.  I still have trouble with the simplest things and the fact that I refer to these things as “things” is a testimony to my utter and complete lack of any technical knowledge whatsoever.  The road is long and strange but slowly I am learning.  Now after a year I am finally able to post a link without embarrassing myself ( I hope) 

On Being Fruity and Colorful

I did realise when I signed up to get a blog here at WordPress that I might be introducing myself to the strange and unusual world of cyberspace and I did have my reservations.  I considered many types of avatars and had decided on a purple nebula (really) and it was not until the last-minute I decided on using my real life image.   I am not one for pictures of myself. It takes some getting used to, but it’s me and it’s honest and that is what I try to adhere to.

I know what you are thinking:  How honest is someone who claims to be some weird name like Strawberryindigo?  It was a name I came up with for Trip Advisor and I just kept using it. If I knew then what I knew now I wouldn’t have picked something so…well, weird. In the beginning many people thought I had a food blog and kept searching my site for recipes.

But again I guess it’s me…and I like colors and fruit and so…what the hell, I could have done worse.

I feel free to write whatever I want. I feel I can expose my inner self by being somewhat anonymous. One day I may change my name, and my site.  Totally scrap the whole thing and start anew, but for now, I’m doing fine just being fruity and colorful.

A Community of Creatives

What I didn’t realise when I signed up to WordPress was the rich community of bloggers that I would become a part of.  It is refreshing to be around so many alive and creative people.   I value each comment and every “like” I have received. It does the heart good to see many of you returning again and again. I  look forward to our visits. I can imagine us as neighbors chatting over the back fence.  I am getting to know many of you through your blogs and comments and I have found you all to be some truly wonderful and amazing people. I have learned so much from you. This is a fantastic little community we are creating here.  I thank you for this!

  Typically, I am a  very shy and reserved person.  In the past I’ve mostly kept my thoughts to myself.   Through my writing here I feel connected to a whole world.  I am coming out of the shadows and into the light…..and it feels spectacular!

The Mad Blogging Part

I started this as a sort of online diary that quickly morphed into something else…just what that is, I do not know.  (If anyone has any thoughts on this please let me know because I am sort of all over the place.)   I guess what I’m attempting here is to train myself to be a writer.  A real writer.  Not just some hack with a laptop and a dream as I perceive myself to be now.  It is my life’s goal to succeed at this endeavor. I have found through trial and error that nothing makes me happier.  It is the air that I breathe and it is engrained in my very essence.  After many years of soul-searching;  it is what I believe I am meant to do.  I know this sounds grandiose and stupid and highly unlikely but I want to somehow make the world a little better because of my writing, if only in some small way…

I started this all as an experiment with the time period of one year. I wanted to see what a year of blogging would do and what I would become after all this….

…and I have found that I’m still in the act of becoming…

I will continue to blog. It’s in my blood now and I don’t want that to change. As my writing continues to evolve I will keep at it, I can’t stop anyway. Writing is essential to my existence. My plans are to eventually start submitting my work and see where that goes but I know that I still have some work to do–my journey continues.

Looking forward to day 367…

Strawberryindigo.

I want to let you know that I will probably never write so much about myself again in one post….I appreciate those of you who are still reading this and I commend you. Thanks.

Related Articles  

My Little Part of the Sky ( My first post!!!)

Diary of a Mad Blogger: the second attempt  

Booklust

Image by thejaymo via Flickr

 Love at first sight  

I must confess, I am a lifelong lover of books.  Even before I learned to read I was attracted to them and it was love at first sight.  I needed to know how to unlock the secrets contained within.  Luckily I took to reading easily and it didn’t take long for the attraction to grow and blossom into full-blown love.

I am a voracious reader and I am in awe of the written word.  There are only so many and every one is vitally important. It is in the careful arrangement of them that make all the difference.   I carry these words with me as I traverse my life in this “interesting” time we live in.  

Books are like old friends to me and at times they have been my only friends. They have seen me through countless waiting rooms and long bus rides.  Through sleepless nights and lazy rainy Sundays, I have enjoyed their company and they have enjoyed mine.  A book makes no demands. It doesn’t scold. It sits silently and waits to be picked up and read. I can curl up with a good book like a warm blanket and be comforted by the words therein. 

It is not only the words in the books that comfort me. It is the books themselves.  Each one has its own personality.  I like the shape and feel of them. I savor the way the pages flicker between my fingertips and the sound that it makes. It’s an intimate tactile experience that could never be replaced by any electronic means.

It is difficult to describe the titillating excitement I feel upon receiving an eagerly awaited book by a favorite author, with the crack of the spine and the flip of the first page, a whole world spills out and my senses come alive with anticipation.

 Books take the reader on a journey to countless places real and imagined.  They can entertain and amuse.  Books can inspire and give insight and knowledge that would otherwise be impossible to obtain.  

 Good books make me think.  Excellent books make me feel as well as think. They have shaped me and have given me a deep respect and appreciation for life and all of its wonderous forms. Some have changed me profoundly and forever.

Books are a window into another universe where the possibilities are limitless.

I have favorites that change and alter as my life and love affair with stories and the written word continues.  What these authors have writtten have not only influenced me as a writer and a reader but as a person as well. 

Have you been shaped by books in your life?  How?  What books or authors have inspired you? Let me know.  

For more inspiration check out my fresh quotes page for quotes on books…….and Happy Reading.

Strawberryindigo.

 

little pieces of paper

 

   

 

 

  Tiny pieces of paper, probably tens of thousands of them, haunt my memory.  Some haunt boxes in the basement, others are in a file beside the bed or scattered all over the house, most are lost with the passage of time.  Every one of them are mine.  Pieces of paper, some are typewritten, most are not.  Most are written with a frenzied scrawl only I can read,  somewhat.

     They are my ideas, my stories, my hopes, dreams and crazy creative musings. I have been writing them down since my weak little grip barely gripped a pencil at age four. 

     No matter what life through at me and no matter how life changed and I changed.  One constant remained. I wrote. 

I wrote as my heart was breaking and  I wrote as my soul was soaring.  Writing was my release.  I could tell everything to those blank pages.  Everything I couldn’t tell others. 

And time passes, and I realise that it gets cold and lonely and dark in the shadows. I can’t keep hiding and scribbling on bits of paper.