Comfort Writing

I have this compulsion to write stuff I'm thinking of down as little side notes, especially when I'm thinking. I'm almost never without a pen and some writing paper (I have so many of them lying around!), because once an idea, or any thought for that matter hits me, I put it down in words so I can store it away for a time when it will be more useful.

Like, for when I get around to writing a real blog entry, for instance.

Many things have happened to me since the last time I've seriously written, but the stories I have dreamed up for them have remained just that, dreams. :-p I keep giving the excuse that I'm always so busy, and that when I get home, I'm usually so tired as to not have the energy to write down about things that matter.

It's that, I suppose, and the fact that before, when I used to write so liberally (and comfortably), one new friend (as told to me by another friend) commented that after seeing my work, this friend thought that I was a lazy writer, in that I did not edit my work... I took offense in that and gave the perfunctory excuse of always being too busy as to do some tweaking with any of my blog entries.

Taking that as a challenge, from then on, I decided that I was going to do a better job of editing whatever I wrote. I wrote with the intent of pleasing an audience, with the belief that there was always a general online public that hung on to my every word, and would cheer me on for the funny stuff I was writing, and in the same way, be turned off if I didn't do a good job.

That was a change, of course, and like they always say, if you want to be good at what you do, you have to be able to handle criticism, and you have to be receptive to advice. Advice and criticism are good things, of course, but the more "self-conscious" I became of my work, the less frequent I wrote. To be perfectly honest, I kept putting it off, always saying that..."Oh, this isn't well-written, I don't want to post this until I do some serious editing." Procrastinating sure did help. My posts became fewer and farther in between...and, to make things worse, my writing was so bad, even my own boyfriend (at the time) didn't think I was good enough to be on his blog roll (because he said his readers would want good, quality

That bad... Sheesh.

(That hurt, by the way.)

I mean, there was a blogger on his list who just wrote about random stuff...one-paragraph deals that were just...short little...paragraphs. Another blogger who had good stuff, but didn't write anything recent, another blogger who.... *sigh* Yes... that bad indeed.

After a while, I lost all desire to make any entries. I was getting busier (in that very traumatic part of my life, my Pediatrics Rotations) and partially discouraged because I didn't even pass my ex-boyfriend's expectations...was not a part of his little list...

Pardon me for sounding like an immature little sore loser, but I really can't help it. I'm still a little sore about it. :-(

Maybe I got drawn into the whole deal of making money from blogging, or from pleasing people and getting plenty of hits on my blog that I started to do everything, put up this blog and that...dabble into this clicking scheme and whatnot... all that stuff. I wanted to be doing what everybody else was doing, I was joining in the bandwagon.

Haha... after all that hullabaloo, at the end of the day, all I wanted to be, was, well, Me. In the first place, I didn't want to blog because of the money, or to please people (or, as my family would call it, to make sure I was not getting myself into unnecessary trouble), it was mostly about letting go...letting my thoughts and words wander where my body physically can't. I believe I called it "catharsis" before.

Yes, blogging is my own personal catharsis, a memoir of my own personal life adventures.

Also, to use my ex’s pet word, this is my own personal Chiaroscuro of moments and memories.

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After reading this entry in its entirety...and I have to say, this is the longest one yet after my personally-imposed period of solitude (and confusion, I suppose). It feels good to just run your fingers over the keys and let give your thoughts free rein, actually. entries.

I should do this more often.

Maybe this isn’t Lazy writing, maybe this is Comfort writing, instead, eh? :-)

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(Pssst …So,why do you blog?)