One weird thing about having a blog and not really having any kind of angst or deadline (or readers?) or anything is that you realize that either you do not have much to say or that you are incredibly boring...and still do not have much to say. Hopefully you're not just getting lazy and becoming one of those people who just ingest popular culture to the detriment of original thought.
I remember when I was in college I could, and would, just bang out some writing for a class, for a journal, for myself, or for a long lost girlfriend or something. I don't seem to be able to do that any more.
In college I also read something by Andre Dubus (the original Andre Dubus, not the UML professor who wrote The House of Sand and Fog who is Andre Dubus III, the son of the Andre Dubus I am talking about) discussing the writing process. I'm paraphrasing, but he said something like good and therapeutic writing is like a rain cloud where all of your thoughts and emotions and everything gather up in a cloud in your head, and the cloud burst - the rain - is what flows out onto the paper.
I also have read something similar from Carlos Santana (by the way, if you only know Santana from his duet thing with Rob Thomas, immediately try and find a clip on youtube or something of Santana doing 'Soul Sacrifice' at Woodstock - that is the real santana in my opinion), where he describes good improvisational music being akin to water rushing through a musician whose function then becomes that of a hose watering the audience of flowers.
The Santana image may be a bit overstated or melodramatic, but I actually think it nails it, and I do think that is almost exactly what Dubus was talking about. I think that if two guys who are as brilliant as those two artists are/were saying it, there has to be something to it, right?
The reason I bring that up is that I feel like I haven't had a real hose moment in a long time on paper. I haven't been able to conjure up the cloud all that often. It could be the confines of this blog are such that it restricts true expression, but that should not be the case.
I also have a memory of one of my favorite English professors demanding from us that we promise him that we won't become one of those people who just stops reading and/or stops challenging themselves to think. I remember making a genuine effort to be true to that promise, to actually engage myself in some kind of thoughtful activity for the remainder of my life. I'm not convinced I've done as good of a job as I can do, but hopefully renewing that promise like this can change that, and can help me think of something to write about.
Of course, as writing workshop teacher after writing workshop teacher will tell you, the difference between those who make money writing and those who are just merely good/lazy writers is that the ones who make money make themselves write, and write a lot, and then re-write.
The point is, it is not just about the hose. You can't always wait around for those rain cloud moments where dramatic and meaningful words cascade onto paper like guinness suds down a pint glass. Sometimes you have to write about the fact that you can't think of anything to write about and hope that if you stay dedicated that you will eventually have something to say beyond, "I have nothing to say," which is basically what I'm saying in this post.
And with that, and without an ending, I will just say Don't Stop...Beleivin', and fade to black.
