211212 Sentinel, Perils and Joys of Writing

I have been writing since I was in high school.

There is no telling how many things I have written because so much of it was the old fashioned way using paper and pen.

I began saving more of my work when I bought my first computer in 1998. There is no totally accurate way to count how many documents I have written. I know I had 1100 pieces on paper by 2006 and there are 2065 posts on my blog since beginning in 2006, so that's a fair amount of work.

Writing does have its perils. It can be a kind master at times and a wicked master at other times. I have gone for days at a time staring at a blank screen on my computer and unable to write a first sentence and that makes me crazy. When I do write, I rewrite the post and rewrite it again trying to polish my wording and correct any errors in grammar or word usage. Sometimes with all that I still miss something. The real horror is during the rewrites. I can go through a different iteration every time and change something. It can be a never-ending nightmare.

I believe it was James Michener (Who wrote the 1000 page book titled Hawaii) he was said to be able to spend a half of a day writing and rewriting a single paragraph. I can’t spend half a day on a single post without getting frustrated and stopping when I get stuck.

There is joy to be had when writing. Those times when my head is exploding with thoughts and ideas and I scramble to put everything on my laptop before I forget it. On those days I might get ideas for 5 or 6 new posts. Once I have the idea, about 8 out of 10 become a decent post. If I write something that I don’t like, I don’t post it, thinking if it’s not good to me it won’t be good to anyone else.