Just the other day I was lamenting with a friend -- on his podcast, no less -- that the personal blog has all but disappeared. That there's just not so much slow, rambling storytelling online, at least not in that old bloggy way. I actually miss reading your long, aimless posts about how you felt when you woke up today. Or about what you had for lunch yesterday. Or about that thing you almost said to that boy when you were twelve, and how the thought of that day has haunted you ever since.
From the latest edition of the Mount Holyoke College alumnae magazine, where I chatted a bit about how to establish a daily writing habit.
It’s been said that writing is easy; you just sit down at your typewriter and bleed. Sounds pretty untidy, fairly painful, and frankly more than a little unsanitary to me. But writing—whether you’re working on a novel or polishing an email to your boss—is an increasingly important skill in today’s hyperconnected world. We all need to write and write well.
So a couple of years ago, I was working on a major deadline. I had a massive writing project that I needed to complete, and things at work and at home were just too frantic for me to clear up enough head space to get it done.
To top it all off, I had to travel the weekend before my project was due.
I get sentences and phrases stuck in my head the way some people do with songs. Either way, I think it's fair to call it an earworm.
And just like that 80's power ballad that won't leave you alone, sticky words and phrases can only be exorcised one way.