Each Day Already is a Challenge

Blogercize?

At a forum on another site, one of the participants talked about blogercizing. Blogercizing? She said that's what she calls her blogging experience when she really doesn't feell like writing her blog. I guess she's not thrilled with real exercise either, but forces herself to do so. Same thing goes with blogging. And when she doesn't feel like blogging, she calls it blogercize. Strange? Perhaps.

Then again, we all should writercize, shouldn't we? Write when we don't feel like it? Know what I've found? Sometimes the words you force upon the page end up being a great beginning to something that really should be written.

Oh sure. There are the times that every writer loves the most, the times when we sit down with pen and paper or at the keyboard and we cannot keep up with the words pouring from our brains to our fingers. Everyone has those times - sometimes. But there are also drier times, and it's then that we should force ourselves to write - ANYTHING!

Sometimes when I'm not up to writing anything profound, I'll merely add to my list of writings that need to be born, to take life, someday. I have such a list on my computer. Perhaps you should too. A list of things that should be written. When you're having a dry period, adding to that list makes sense. But so does perusing the list to see if something jumps out and says, "Write me - NOW!" It could happen.

I think sometimes writers have "writer's block" because they have come to expect having it. What? Well, sure.

Take me, for instance. I started writing as a child. For me, there was an endless supply of writing subjects around me. You know...the wonder of a child. I filled up notebooks with my writings. I wrote and wrote and wrote. No one had ever told me that there might be times when there wasn't anything to write about, or that I wouldn't be able to find something about which to write. I never read any biographies or autobiographies about writers, just about other kinds of people. So I didn't know there was any such thing as writer's block.

Through the years, I continued to write and write and write. I can honestly say that I never experienced writer's block. Yes, there were times when my pen did not race across the page as fast as it had the day before, but I could always find something for my pen to do or say.

During times when I needed six hands because there were so many thoughts trying to escape onto the page at the same time, I started writing lists of things to ponder later. I learned to add to those lists when my writing mind slowed down a bit. And if I had a day when I started out thinking, "I wonder my words should be today?" then I might peruse that list of things that were screaming at me earlier, "Write me! Write me!"

There's another writer's site that has categories for stories listed at the size of the page. One suggests character traits, and if you click on that link you'll find this list: aggressiveness, alertness, appreciation, commitment, complacency, courage, dependability, disappointment, fidelity, forgiveness, honesty, insight, iIntegrity, kindness, loyalty, mercy, morals, passion, patience, playfulness, resiliency, respect, sensitivity.
I copied those words onto my "topics to cover someday" page to use as suggested topics. That other site also has these topics: contexts (arts & crafts, holidays, miracles, etc.), feelings (anger, confusion, delight, etc.), self-skills (self-awareness, self-esteem, etc.), skills (achieving dreams, communicating, creating, etc.), transitions (adoption, illness, death, etc.), and values (control, faith, innocence, knowledge, etc.). With that list of topics, how could one not find something about which to write?

Since most of what I write is non-fiction and about people and happenings, I also have a list of my closest friends and family and notes about some incident that deserves being told. Maybe. Someday.

If my lists don't spark any interest, then I know that if I sit on the porch - no matter what time of day - that I will see God's creatures all around me, enjoying their existence. I'll hear those birds singing and watch the squirrels romping. I'll observe the ants carrying heavy loads to their hidden homes. Something will surely trigger thoughts that get my fingers anxious to write.

Reading the Bible is a daily adventure for me, and sometimes a verse will cause me to ponder something that should be written. Or in my discussions with God the Father, something important might come up in our talks that really should be shared with the world.

To keep a good stream of future writing topics at hand, one must also read, read, read. I am always amazed at the so-called writer who claims, "I don't have time to read." Balderdash. The only way a writer can become a better writer is by reading the works of others. Remember...just living is a continuing education program. Writing certainly has to be that as well. I love Mark Twain's quotation, "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them."

If you had never heard the term "writer's block" do you think you would really be able to claim it and use it as an excuse? Or would you find a way to write at every opportunity?

Writers write. They write in their dreams, they write in their minds as they drive to their "real work", they write in their minds as they shop for groceries, clean the bathroom, walk the dog.

Long ago, I made it perfectly clear about what I think defines a writer.

Kenzie says: "I don’t think true writers ever write anything bad, not if we allow the heart and soul to be the writer of our words."

Kenzie says: "If you dream of being a writer, you already are one! The words are merely being held prisoner in your mind. Release them!"

But I think as I learn and grow, I have realized something else. The real writer never accepts writer's block. Oh sure, you'll hear famous writers talking about it once in a while. (Someone told them it was a reality too!) But if you listen closely, they were still trying to write even when they claimed they had writer's block.

What have you tried to write today? Nothing? Then get out your list. Don't have one? Then start one. There is so much about which to write. Actually, there are not enough hours or days or weeks or months or years available to each one of us to write all the words that we have to write.

Know what I think? A real writer has writer's frustration about all those words and whether or not they will ever be written. There's no time for writer's block!