Nothing To Say

As soon as I wrote my post last Thursday celebrating the anniversary of my blog and stating, with great conviction, that I would keep on writing, darn it, I found myself with nothing to say. Seriously. I sat down on Sunday to write my normally scheduled blog post, and my mind was a complete blank. Crickets were chirping in there. So I started moving furniture around in my living room instead.

I didn’t get any writing done, but the room looks mahvelous.

That’s the way it always goes for me. It’s one reason I don’t like to talk about works in progress, or, basically, my state of progress on anything. It’s almost a phobia. It seems like if I talk or write about something before it’s finished, there’s a part of me thinking it’s already complete. Then I lose impetus to keep working on the thing because I’ve already talked it all out.

The words themselves have a reality, and I can forget that the reality of the words do not necessarily translate into reality in other, more earthly, forms. If I talk about my book as if it’s complete, I feel that it is already finished and I don’t want to work on it anymore. I talk about writing a blog and – presto! The blog magically writes itself.

But, of course, this isn’t true. I can talk about my book as if it were finished until the cows come home, but the book is not really finished. I can talk about writing a blog for another year, but the fact is that I haven’t written a blog for another year. I can say whatever I want to about anything, I can make you believe that it is true. I can believe it’s true too. But it is not true and it is not finished unless I get off my duff and actually finish it.

Some people talk about what they’re working on all the time. A part of me is jealous – they seem to be so much more productive than I am (and they probably are more productive). But I also wonder if they are actually working on those things, or if they’re just talking about them.

On the other hand, maybe if I write a blog about having nothing to say, I’ll think that I’m finished with having nothing to say and then I’ll always have lots to say.

Hmmmm.