The Ramblings of my Disorganised Mind

Bloggers Block?

Question: How do you know your writer's block is getting really annoying?

Answer: when you can't find anything to say for your blog, for pity's sake.

Actually, I'm not writer's block-ed, in the strictest sense of the word. I have many ideas, and even get to the point of jotting them down for later so I won't forget them. I have about 4 different projects in my head at any one time that I'm actually working on at the moment.

That's usual, actually. I always have a lot going on up there, even when I'm blocked. My brain works like a multiverse, different threads all the time. It's hard to explain, but I can actually have 100% attention on each of 3 different things at once (yes, I know that doesn't work mathematically, but it's the only way I know how to explain it). I know that this makes me seem rather.... distracted at times. Stupid, at others. Like, I tend to jump from thought to thought fairly quickly, and if I'm silly enough to verbalise what I'm doing (which, when there's usually no-one else to talk things through with, you tend to get in the habit of doing), then it's like trying to follow a freight train on steroids. If you understand this about me, then it's fairly easy to handle, just wait until I'm done with the verbal diarrhoea and I'll let you know the conclusion. hehe. if you're really fortunate, then I'll actually hide the train of thought and give a definitive response straight up.

The advantages to having a thought process like this are that I can actually keep a lot of things on the subconscious boiler ready to go, and that I can think through the pros and cons of any project fairly quickly, given all of the information. The other advantage is that I can see both sides of an argument very quickly.

The disadvantage is that I can't turn it off, and if I have many things on the subconscious boiler and then find I don't have time to actually get them down in hard copy, then it tends to implode.

The analogy goes something like this:

Think "computer".

The conscious thoughts running right now = open windows. This covers stuff like, getting the kids' stuff together, the project/s I am working on now, what I have to do today, dealing with immediate crises at home, etc.

Subconscious boilers = background programmes (you know, the ones running on your comp when you hit "Ctrl-alt-del" once). This includes working on stuff that ahve to do with the projects I'm working on now, future stuff, things I need to do soon, emotional things not yet dealt with...

If I don't shut down every so often, I run out of RAM and freeze up. Basic programmes won't run.

This seems to be happening at the moment. I'm not in a position where I can take out an hour to myself here and there just to clear my head. Even after the kids are in bed, I still have the "keep an ear out for crying child" programme running in the background.

Then what happens is you find you can't shut down.

Of course, the analogy falls flat here because in the case of background programmes, you can spend a bit of time shutting them down one by one or clearing the unnecessary ones from your hard drive. In real life, I tend to handle mental burnout by adding projects to my "hard drive" (brain), because a new idea or project will help things keep going on the other ones. Stirs interest, you know.

Of course, I'm in burnout phase at the moment, and as a result, I'm finding it difficult to get anything done. I spent some time with a couple of friends last weekend, which was great, and helped the processes somewhat (not to mention it's always great spending time with my friends. We'd planned to go see a film but ended up not doing that, we puttered around a bit, had coffee/lunch & good conversation. But it's not important what we're doing, it's the company that is important, and Damon & Nicky are good company), but... my mind has gone all high maintenance on me right now. Like, I'm thinking that Nicky's idea of heading off to a buddhist monastery and spending a week in self-imposed silence would be a GREAT idea, if it were at all possible.

Ha ha. I heard that thought. :-P Not that it's impossible for me to be silent for a week (one of the disadvantages of having many children is that after a particularly bad day, when they all decide to be "off" at once, I get sick of the sound of my own voice), but it's impossible for me to go off somewhere for a week.

I also wonder if, if I'm not giving voice to some of the thoughts, that my brain wouldn't just go haywire and explode. I mean, literally. I think that's actually possible.

Anyhoooo, I've gone all "lazy" (as Scott would call it) with my writing again. Actually, for a week or so there, I hit "couldn't be bothered" level with just about everything. Not that I didn't do things because of that, you can't really get away with "couldn't be bothered" making dinner in this household hehe! Even with the blog, I actually opened up the "new post" page, then realised I was literally stuck and then thought "couldn't be bothered" thinking of anything.

I started this post four times, deleted whatever I'd done, closed down once and then decided, "no."

The first attempt was actually going to be a breakdown of the next air sign, Libra. Then I realised that every single time I've done one of these, it's because something I couldn't cope with mentally was going on in my life, and I was simply diverting my attention without realising it. Weird, huh. Also, my ex is a Libran (of the hypocritical kind) and I'd find it very difficult to be nice, let alone fair, right now.

Anyway, another friend of mine asked me to do a composite chart of himself and a... hmmm... how do I phrase this.... "potential possibility." Which I did. While I was there, out of a morbid sense of curiosity, I did a composite of myself and... er... someone else. And it was rather good, actually. Almost, can you say "terrific"? Like, even the bad bits (which were pretty bad) were bad in a good way.

So my second and third attempts were going to be on this discovery and how damned depressing that is. Depressing, because he'll never see that, and probably wouldn't think anything of it even if he did. And I actually don't place a lot of credence in the whiole thing anyway, despite the fascination (if I did, I NEVER would've married the first guy. The chart was spookily accurate there, too... disASter).

Then I realised that the person concerned, on the odd occasion (I discovered) actually does read this. Given the suprising accuracy of some of the chart I figured posting bits--not a good idea. This is supposed to be a big secret, after all, right?

So you're stuck with only the...hehe, ramblings of my disorganised mind. Pun unintended.



Next time, I'm going to reproduce a post one of the Lifeliners put there. It was pretty good.

posted by Heather @ 9:58 am