Losing My Voice
"Once you start compromising your thoughts, you're a candidate for mediocrity."
-Neil Simon, Biloxi Blues
I would imagine that all writers go through periods of writing and non writing... a sort of creative phasing, if you will... a natural cycle. But what happens when the period of "non writing" occurs outside of your normal writing cycle? What happens when for apparently inexplicable reasons, a writer simply cannot write? I wonder if any of you have faced this problem...
I haven't written anything in over a month. Not on this blog, not in my journal, not even in email. I have been suffering from I guess what you could call a serious case of creative constipation of the literary kind.
It was if one morning I woke up and couldn't write. I wanted to write, I tried to write, I sat with my laptop open, its screen glowing gloomily for long periods of time and yet I was unable to "put words on paper"... tap out a well formed thought in Word. It got to the point that I couldn't bear to sit at my keyboard because the experience was painful, demoralizing and worst of all, it just didn't make any sense.
I am/was a writer after all... I live and breathe words. Do I make any claims to be a good writer? No. I am just saying I am a writer... just as other people are listeners, or feelers, or talkers.
I find life to be a tactile, sensual, stimulating, thought provoking affair and writing affords me the opportunity to express my reactions to it. For me, it is through words that things make sense. I write to give order to my world... to understand myself and this thing called life.
In my head, things aren't as clear....they seem jumbled....large...and confusing...wispy half-thoughts fluttering about. However, when I capture them on paper, they are manageable and concrete and more importantly, they are still.
But not lately. Lately, I have had writer's block... or should I say blogger's block? Blogging is unique in the sense that as a writer, you are putting your stuff out there on the great information byway for everyone and their mothers to see, analyze, link to and opine on. It doesn't matter if you have a following of four or 40,000, your personal "junk" is not being recorded in your private journal hidden safely under the mattress. It is public and participatory.
So how does this contribute to my recent bout of "blockage"? Self censorship. When I started this blog, I had a purpose... and a voice. In the beginning I used my voice to explore and chronicle my personal spanking journey. This was my haven... the one place where I could unwrap the mysterious and often very confusing layers of my kink with unfettered abandon. And I wrote honestly... openly... innocently... and without censure.
Over time I became aware that people were reading what I wrote (and some of you actually liked it!) and this pleased me to no end. It energized me... spurred me on to share more of myself... of my journey. But with it came an acute awareness that I was not alone anymore.
What I wrote was being read by others... being judged by others. A few well placed criticsms, along with plenty of "helpful" advice on how to "blog better" became the mental pebbles that started my slide down the slippery slope of self censoring.
I became increasingly sensitive about what I wrote here. Slowly, quietly, I became less open... less willing to share my thoughts. The purpose of my blog changed as I deliberately began choosing not to blog about certain things... not to explore certain feelings or thoughts "on paper".
My choice of non disclosure led to an insidious problem that I have now realized had deep reaching implications. By choosing not to blog about certain things, I inadvertently made it hard to blog about any related issues, and by extension, anything related to that, etc.
This blog was a place for me to make sense of my kink... a place where I could grow into myself. How could I make sense of my kink if I chose not to offer up to the light those things I sorely needed to put down on paper in order to make sense of my kink? Soon enough there was nothing which was left to blog... except the "safe" stuff... the "generic" stuff.
Essentially, I lost my voice. And I was left with basic Blogger bullshit runoff: Cute quizzes, memes, bland entries devoid of any kind of serious emotion, and more meaningless fluff. I had nothing of substance to write about. I was just going through the motions.
Hence the block.
So where am I now, a month later? Alive. Well. And still naughty. And you know what? I think my block is gone. So here I am... reflective... refreshed... and with a renewed sense of purpose to stay true to my voice...
And did I happen to say naughty? ;)
-Neil Simon, Biloxi Blues
I would imagine that all writers go through periods of writing and non writing... a sort of creative phasing, if you will... a natural cycle. But what happens when the period of "non writing" occurs outside of your normal writing cycle? What happens when for apparently inexplicable reasons, a writer simply cannot write? I wonder if any of you have faced this problem...
I haven't written anything in over a month. Not on this blog, not in my journal, not even in email. I have been suffering from I guess what you could call a serious case of creative constipation of the literary kind.
It was if one morning I woke up and couldn't write. I wanted to write, I tried to write, I sat with my laptop open, its screen glowing gloomily for long periods of time and yet I was unable to "put words on paper"... tap out a well formed thought in Word. It got to the point that I couldn't bear to sit at my keyboard because the experience was painful, demoralizing and worst of all, it just didn't make any sense.
I am/was a writer after all... I live and breathe words. Do I make any claims to be a good writer? No. I am just saying I am a writer... just as other people are listeners, or feelers, or talkers.
I find life to be a tactile, sensual, stimulating, thought provoking affair and writing affords me the opportunity to express my reactions to it. For me, it is through words that things make sense. I write to give order to my world... to understand myself and this thing called life.
In my head, things aren't as clear....they seem jumbled....large...and confusing...wispy half-thoughts fluttering about. However, when I capture them on paper, they are manageable and concrete and more importantly, they are still.
But not lately. Lately, I have had writer's block... or should I say blogger's block? Blogging is unique in the sense that as a writer, you are putting your stuff out there on the great information byway for everyone and their mothers to see, analyze, link to and opine on. It doesn't matter if you have a following of four or 40,000, your personal "junk" is not being recorded in your private journal hidden safely under the mattress. It is public and participatory.
So how does this contribute to my recent bout of "blockage"? Self censorship. When I started this blog, I had a purpose... and a voice. In the beginning I used my voice to explore and chronicle my personal spanking journey. This was my haven... the one place where I could unwrap the mysterious and often very confusing layers of my kink with unfettered abandon. And I wrote honestly... openly... innocently... and without censure.
Over time I became aware that people were reading what I wrote (and some of you actually liked it!) and this pleased me to no end. It energized me... spurred me on to share more of myself... of my journey. But with it came an acute awareness that I was not alone anymore.
What I wrote was being read by others... being judged by others. A few well placed criticsms, along with plenty of "helpful" advice on how to "blog better" became the mental pebbles that started my slide down the slippery slope of self censoring.
I became increasingly sensitive about what I wrote here. Slowly, quietly, I became less open... less willing to share my thoughts. The purpose of my blog changed as I deliberately began choosing not to blog about certain things... not to explore certain feelings or thoughts "on paper".
My choice of non disclosure led to an insidious problem that I have now realized had deep reaching implications. By choosing not to blog about certain things, I inadvertently made it hard to blog about any related issues, and by extension, anything related to that, etc.
This blog was a place for me to make sense of my kink... a place where I could grow into myself. How could I make sense of my kink if I chose not to offer up to the light those things I sorely needed to put down on paper in order to make sense of my kink? Soon enough there was nothing which was left to blog... except the "safe" stuff... the "generic" stuff.
Essentially, I lost my voice. And I was left with basic Blogger bullshit runoff: Cute quizzes, memes, bland entries devoid of any kind of serious emotion, and more meaningless fluff. I had nothing of substance to write about. I was just going through the motions.
Hence the block.
So where am I now, a month later? Alive. Well. And still naughty. And you know what? I think my block is gone. So here I am... reflective... refreshed... and with a renewed sense of purpose to stay true to my voice...
And did I happen to say naughty? ;)