I bet there’s a million blogs out there which are described as someone’s “blog about, you know, whatever” in one form or another.

That’s one of the things I like about LiveJournal. It doesn’t pretend to give everyone a blog. It’s just a journal, a Live one at that. Journal, diary, logbook, memoir, call it what you will.

The point is, there is no inherent assumption of topicality in a diary or journal. It’s not supposed to have a single unifying theme or stick to one subject matter to the exclusion of all others.

It’s about you, the diarist, and your life, and whatever it is you feel like writing about.

It really is about, you know, whatever.

Have you figured out yet that I couldn’t think of a subject to write about today? If so, please reward yourself with a healthy dessert.

I haven’t gotten much else done today, and I will likely be busy for the rest of the evening, so this is my best chance to at least get some words out of my brain today.

I did get four or five more pages edited in mah book type thang. I think the main problem, beside the obvious factor of just being lazy and self-indulgent, is that it is so hard for me to know when I am done with a page.

And I don’t handle open-ended tasks very well. I need to know when things are done. I need predictability. I have a terrible need to know where, exactly, the road leads and how long it is and exactly when I will get to go back into my shell once more.

So something linear, like writing a certain amount of words a day, I can do. But something like, basically, “stare at this bunch of words until you can’t find anything to fix any more” is just too unpredictable for me.

I keep trying to convince myself to view it not as editing, but as reading with the option to fix anything that happens to strike me as wrong. Reading is linear. I can do reading. Reading is good.

And honestly, I am enjoying the reading part. It sounds funny, but I have forgotten a lot of what I wrote last month. Not the broad strokes of the plot, but the details of what I wrote. So it is kind of like rediscovering something I wrote myself.

And I might be biased, but I am finding it all quite fascinating.

I can already feel some of my faith in my own writing skills returning. Yesterday really was the nadir, and I am climbing back up. I just have to keep certain things in mind, like….

1. I am just starting out in serious writing, so of course, my stuff is not going to compare well to the works of experienced writers who have been doing this for years and whose words have been through a very thorough editing process before I even seen them. In fact, in some cases, I am reading a fifth or sixth edition, which means it has been through many rounds of said editing process. So feeling bad because my stuff doesn’t read like theirs does in terms of polish and professionalism is like women feeling bad because they don’t look like the professionally made up, groomed, and Photoshopped models in the magazines. It’s just silly.

2. I have never been the sort of person with a lot of technical skills. I learn skills organically and nor formally. This means I largely learn by doing. That’s why I have largely given up on trying to learn anything about writing by reading books on writing. I simply cannot learn that way. My writing comes from deep inside and is a very specialized and personal process. You can’t teach that. I learn to write by writing, and reading. The rest is, I am sure, wonderful for people who have a different sort of process than I. But for me, nah. So the lesson to take from this is to just concentrate on writing and not worry about the technical side of things. That belongs to the other half of writing from the one I am good at, and I can’t learn that kind of thing from a book or an online course or whatnot. It’s all too technical for my organically constructed brain.

3. Talent is what you start with. Skill is what you develop. (That’s a simplification, of course, but it will do. ) So lack of skill does not mean “you suck”. One of the potential downfalls of a precocious childhood is that you end up placing too much value on that which comes easily and naturally to you. Talent, potential, intelligence, those sorts of things. But skill is acquired, not inherent, and sooner or later, you have to learn to accept that some things cannot simply be learned like a fact. You have to learn by doing it, and at first, doing it badly because you don’t have the skill yet. Doing it badly is the only way to learn to do it well. If you expect your efforts to be perfect from the get-go, you are setting yourself up for failure. You have to keep on trying long enough to acquire the skill. That is a very hard thing for a lot of us to accept. Especially, of course, those of us cursed with a desire for predictable, linear results. Practice doesn’t work that way.

Hmmm. I should print these out and stick them on the wall or something.

What else? Oh right. Had therapy this morning. Not a lot to say about that. Spent the first half of my precious time bogged down in a semantic discussion with him. Have to learn to avoid that in the future.

Plus, went to my GP, got the big old pill refill. There was some doubt as to whether my new pill, Januvia, aka Sitagliptin (say that backwards and someone goes back to their home dimension) would be covered by my provincial drug plan. But luckily, it was, so I am all set with 100 days’ worth. That was a profound load off my mind.

Still, no complacency. I have resolved to eat absolutely nothing containing sugar until Christmas Eve. I had gotten way too casual about going off script, so to speak, and I need to “dry out” and let my blood sugar levels go down to normal and stay there a while before I cross the line again.

And every time I feel a terrible longing for all the bad stuff available everywhere (you have no idea how much sugary food is ubiquitous until you can’t have any), it only confirms how out of whack my system has gotten and hence stiffens my resolve not to give in.

I will just stick with my sugar free cookies and remain safe. With their help, I can resist.

Thank you so much, Peak Freens!