hey!

[dragonlady7]

I'm trying to sneak this at work, where I don't normally have Internet access, so we'll see how that goes. I may have to abruptly post it unfinished.
I should find an iPhone app for this, as I'd be more likely to use it, but I so detest typing on the iPhone. I don't... experience the Internet like I used to.
Happy New Year, everyone. I do still read LJ. I rarely comment, but I think comments all the time. i've always kind of been like this, I just am worse lately.

I was reading old entries from '06-'08ish, and god Damn, people, did I ever need to be on antidepressants. Really. Holy crap. I've forgotten them two days in a row now and am feeling pretty cranky, but it's still way better than I was. How did I not know about brain chemicals before? Sheesh.

I'd do a retrospective on '11 like everyone does this time of year, but I don't have time to collect my thoughts sufficiently. That seems to be the story of '11 for me, though-- I don't have time to collect my thoughts sufficiently to say anything organized or edited, so here's some random crap I spewed out, how's that! It's effective as a means of getting through life, but it's kind of sad... I was reading some of the essays I churned out back then and good heavens. Just having an hour or two to sit and write and reread and edit... I could really make some beautiful things with words. Nowadays, not so much.

It's probably a question of priorities as much as anything else, because it's not like I have less free time now than I did then. (Or do I? I really don't know how to objectively assess.)

I do vividly recall that I used to write entries, reread them, edit them, and then post them after like half a day of rumination. That was nice. I remember that being nice. This journal was such valuable therapy for me for so long...

Things will change soon. I'm sure they will. My life is fine, and good, and happy-making, and I'm better off than I was back when the only thing I had going for me was an obsessive hobby of writing essays and fiction. ... I really thought I'd finish a book someday, once, and I really worked hard on it, and I really had time to think about that kind of thing once. I miss my fictional characters. I never see them anymore. I don't know how long I can live like that, but I can try. Maybe I'll have time to get back into nonfiction soonish?

Eh. We'll see. It's the Year of the Dragon, and it's supposed to be a year to make momentous decisions. That's the plan.

Comments

[kkatowll.livejournal.com]

Go back to writing. Really. It's wonderful. I used to write the way you did -- I mean, in the method, not the skill. But I just don't have four hours of uninterrupted time every day anymore. Or rather I do but I now prefer to make dinner and perhaps interact with human beings or sleep or something.
So. I started writing every day, even if it was just a word. You can carve out 15 minutes. You can get up a little earlier, or hole up somewhere right before/after work, etc. Whatever works for you. It's important.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

2011 was my final proof of concept that writing 1 minute a day, 15 minutes a day, 3 minutes every other day, does NOT work for me. I must set writing aside until I have time to devote to it; I am miserable any other way. I have to be immersed, and such tiny irregular doses of time (for there are, indeed, days when I do not have one minute, fifteen minutes, three minutes) means that 9/10 of my writing time is spent reviewing so I can re-immerse myself.
I have plenty of fragments I've written in these short spans, plenty of new beginnings. What I need is to sit and immerse and re-structure and devote real attention to it. I cannot be a writer, for if I am to be a writer, I must have time. I do not. So I am not a writer. That's that, for now. That's what I learned in 2011. (Though I knew it in 2010, and 2009, and was learning it in 2008...)

[mackmace.livejournal.com]

The Livejournal iPhone app is pretty good, as it accounts for the majority of my posts lately.