I’m not sure that worked out too well, because I have little to show for it but a pile of disconnected thoughts and no finished product. I’m thinking this breeze doesn’t always swoop down and bestow great illuminations that flow effortlessly from your fingers as we act as stenographers to the dawn.

But could that maybe be a good thing?

I like to just dash off stuff as it comes to me because little I write seems important enough to labor over, formulating my thoughts and figuring out where to place each word and all that. Also, I tend not to finish things that I start, if I don’t finish them right away. The bane of my writing life, that.

I think now, though, that that may have more to do with that same lack of belief in the importance (to anyone but me) of what I am saying than lack of discipline (though there is that) or anything else. So, I started asking myself questions. Like…

How we as writers decide that some topic that just drops into our minds is worth following up on, spending time on, perfecting? It’s just possible, is it not, that most everything could be made relevant or at least worth the time, if time is spent on it to make it so? Perhaps no earth shattering revelations (I’m fairly sure those  are few and far between) but maybe slipping a dollop of unique perspective into the deluge of information and other unique perspectives that rush by daily. Who knows who will find value in it, but if we don’t ourselves value it – enough to take the time, to scrutinize each word and attempt to pull out what meaning we can from the tendril of thought – how will we ever find out?

If I think of it that way, I might just be able to go back and finish – slowly and carefully, maybe. or maybe not – some of the things I have waiting in the queue. Sure, a lot of it may be pretty crappy at first, even the final product, even with attention paid. But without that, without at least the attempt, there is nothing at all, which does not seem to me to be better (though it may seem so to others, ha). Still, it’s worth doing, even if only for the experience of doing it, of learning how to jettison the junk and keep the rest. 

I guess when you think about it, one of the primary differences between mediocre writers and good or great ones, beyond talent and study and lots of practice and work, is that the good(+) writers are also much better de-crapifiers.

[photo by Ibarionex Perello, via here]