Blogging ...

... is much harder work than I expected.

When I started this blog, I thought the hardest part would be finding the ideas.  The topic.  What to write about.  Putting the actual words on paper - or rather screen - would be a mere formality.  My (deranged) mind taking over, current flowing through my slightly carpel-tunneled finger tips and Voila! the result? A blog.  In 15 minutes flat.  Or so I thought.

That was the perception - or should I say misperception?  Ideas have flowed through my brain like water tumbling over a cliff, forming a free-falling waterfall.  The hard part has been to capture them before they fade away.  To put the idea on paper (or screen or whatever) somewhere for later use.  When writing finally commences, the words start flowing in my mind like water in a tumbling brook below the waterfall.

Water is powerful.  Powerful enough to erode solid rock into great tourist attractions like the Grand Canyon.  Powerful enough to wipe away entire towns in a tsunami.  Powerful enough to collapse infrastructure in the wake of a powerful hurricane like Katrina in 2005.

Words contain that kind of power as well.  Words have the power to inflame or to inform.  To stir up or calm down.  To capture the imagination through flights of fancy.  To describe.

Words can do almost anything.  Yet, they need to be used wisely.  Each words needs to be thought about before it becomes permanently etched in any form of writing.

And so each time I sit down to write this blog, the title, the theme, comes first:  the waterfall.  Next the words start to flow like the tumbling stream below Webster's Falls.

Unlike the mass of tumbling water, the waters need to be reviewed, tightened up, reviewed again.  Revised.  And revised again.  Some words taken out.  Others, including whole sentences, put in.  Much thought needs to go into the writing before the piece becomes a finished product.  Published for all to see.

Much thought and energy go into the creation of each blog.  A lot of review and revision.  Often, I have to simply stop and refresh my mind with a cup of coffee, a piece of right-brain activity such as knitting or reading.  But I keep coming back, time and time again, to the blog.

A piece of me expectant as a pregnant woman to give birth to this piece of prose.  Waiting for the birth to happen.  Groaning with the pain and energy of it all.  (OK, so maybe the birth analogy isn't exactly the best one, but I think you, the reader, get the idea.

While I write, my focus is entirely on the screen before me.  On the words forming themselves one by one in front of me.  Everything else, including cute Papa Bears who wake up all growly and grumbly, are blocked out for the time being (poor Papa Bear).  All focus on what I am doing.

There could be an earthquake.  And I would ask it politely to wait a few minutes while I save the text and publish it.  A fire.  Emergency vehicles racing past my window.  A cat demanding to have some cuddle time.  All are ignored.  They can wait.  The blog, the creativity pouring through me, cannot.

Outside distractions (and inside ones as well) do not exist during this time of intense concentration.

At the end of the blog, I feel weak from all the energy expended.  Yet I feel exhilarated as well.  I have done it!  I have birthed another blog!  I feel alive with anticipation.

Life is good.

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Let the day begin!