Lost.

I have lost something in my writing.

In the day in and day out and inability to focus, something important has drained from it.

I read blogs of others - ability to empower, weave words in beautiful patterns - sometimes I'm just writing to purge.

There is something that is brimming there, at the edges of my fingertips and I type it out. 

It's not always a pretty picture.  It's sometimes cliche and sometimes not so well thought out.

Sometimes I write because I feel obligated, rather than inspired.  

Often I am writing to share some new knowledge or some new rant or just share the news.

I read others who write about things in their lives and they have such a way with story - and I envy them and I think - how will I get there?  And...  was I there once?  And if so...where did it go?

My husband and I went for coffee tonight and talked.  Okay...I mostly talked... and we got on the subject of our various artistic endeavors and I told him that I was really thinking I needed to focus more on my writing.

There are so many artsy things that I really enjoy doing.  I love theatre and painting and music, but writing is something that has always been there.  It's the thing I fall back on.  The thing I come back to.  The thing where I know the rules well enough to break them (like ending a sentence with a preposition, or starting one with a conjunction).  The thing that fits comfortably in all of my emotions.  Feels like a flannel nightgown or a cup of tea by a fire. 

But writing is one of those things where you feel guilty leaving the house.

And when you're in the house - focusing is often, if not always, impossible.

I'm a late night writer for one thing - and staying up later than 11 is really just dumb when you're a stay-at-home mom and you want to function in the morning.  My two year old is slamming the bedroom door open sometime between six and seven-thirty in the morning pretty much without fail. 

I could probably figure out a way to switch my creative clock to something a little more reasonable, but filtering the mess that my brain becomes throughout the day out and the things I'm interested in talking about in is another fun-filled challenge.  And finding time during which I won't be interrupted - well...  I'm a stay at home mom in a family of unschoolers.  Some of you will understand that a little better than others. 

What is this uninterrupted time you speak of?

A lot of my more "serious" writing has been put on the back burner.  And I'm here with my blogs.

I want to make them more than they are - try different things.  Weave a poem around here and there.

And I feel a little trapped by the characters they've taken on themselves - each with its own strange and elusive personality.  I'm not always sure what to do with that.  I've written myself into a corner? 

Regardless - this particular blog seems to serve as my most creative outlet, and so here I am - letting it out - or something.

I'll have to do some thinking about what it means to change things - to put a genuine effort into something.  Maybe I've been a slacker all this time.  From the beginning.