Not Feeling It

I don't feel like writing this morning. Truth is I never really feel like writing. Not like I feel like playing golf or feel like watching a good movie, anyway. Writing is hard. I have to engage some part of me that is part intellectual and part mystery. Whatever it is - we'll go with muse for now - it always seems reluctant to get in gear. Even as I approach my 300th blog the process gets no easier. You would think that by now this would be as facile and routine as slipping on my sweats first thing in the A.M.; something done offhand, with ease and only partial awareness. But nooooo, I've got to read and answer mail, check out Yahoo news, follow my sports teams and anything else I can think of to avoid getting to the writing. I am told by other writers that this is not uncommon. My question is, why? Do painters dodge painting? Sculpters take up magazines before their chisels? Why do we, the wordsmiths, go to our task so reluctantly? The answer, for me anyway, comes from an anonymous quote I read years ago that paraphrased says, writers don't like to write they just like to have written. I find that verdad, the truth...in part. Ending is far more satisfying than starting, but there is also a subtle joy I experience along the way, even when I'm struggling to dig out the next word. Creativity, I surmise, even on this small scale, is as necessary for me as sunshine and water are to our new lawn. And, as I don't know how to do anything else, I'll just have to keep wading through the miasma of fear and doubt and get to the task.

And there it is, done for another day.