Ramble a bit, why don’t you

Creativity, I think, is a bit stymied by tiredness. Good sleep is an essential component of many things, and I would argue creation is benefited by rest. (The beginning of the book of Genesis would suggest the same. Nearer, my God, to thee.)

I’m still struggling with things to write about. Which is a shame, because a few days ago, I had plenty of ideas. Now, though, my thoughts feel gritty and dusty, like leftover sand (not even fresh sand), sticking in places it shouldn’t and just generally making things dirty rather than serving any poetic purpose by trickling helpfully through my fingers.

And yet, I write. Here I am. Writing. Is this doing the work? I suppose it is, in a sense. Practice typing, practice writing out words and words and words. There’s a nice kind of therapeutic repetitiveness to it, and as absolutely roadblocked as I feel, I still have to pause here and there to think of the phrasing I’d like to use, the nuance I’d like to impart on any given sentence.

I really specifically don’t want to write about the things I do in a day, or the things I’ve eaten, or anything that’s list-making about how I spend my time. That feels simply too mundane. “I made oatmeal again this morning, then I took a shower before work.” That kind of dialogue. I’d like to firmly stay away from that. I appreciate a good list, and in fact used to make lists like that for myself: “7am wake up. 7:05am shower. 7:35am get dressed. 7:40am eat breakfast (cereal).” As if getting all the deciding in regards to timing done ahead of time, I could then breezily go about my day without a worry in my head. (The main problem is that I would quickly get distracted, so I never ended up following my schedule, ever. But it was still a satisfying exercise.) But writing about lists, as I suppose I have managed to do now for several sentences, is as close as I want to get to writing out lists in a blog post. No thank you. Not unless they serve some sort of specific purpose. Not unless they contribute to the storyline.

But then, I’m not a storyteller, am I? I tell myself that I’m not; I don’t have the patience for creating worlds. For creating characters, except for myself. I don’t want to get in over my head, which would happen close to immediately if I were to try and write a Proper Story.

But then again, there are lots of different types of stories, aren’t there?

Here I am, writing a story about how I do or don’t write lists. The smell of solder is in my nose as the love of my life tinkers with some very old microphones. I’m reminding myself it’s nearly the end of festival season.

And for tonight, that is all.