Pictures and words

I like pictures... You might have drawn that conclusion all by yourself if you noticed that every single post has an image accompanying it. Occasionally I'll find an image and then write a post to fit it, but more often than not, I'll write something and leave looking for a suitable image as a final, sweet task. Sometimes this will take longer than writing the actual blog entry. I will sift through dozens and dozens of images, opening the ones I like in individual tabs in my browser, going back and forth until I find one I like. And yet... I almost never feel satisfied with the one I chose.

Just as I'm never completely satisfied with the words I choose when I write. If I don't stop myself, I will edit and polish and edit again everything I've ever written. Sometimes, a phrase or a sentence will pour out of my fingers, perfectly shaped and impeccably complete. I will stare at it, trying to discern flaws, trying to find something to grab on to, something to change. Eventually, I'll tire and grudgingly allow it to remain.

But more often than not, the sentence is not perfect. And then it becomes an endless puzzle, with pieces that can be rearranged and changed and made to fit together. I spend so much more time editing than writing. I'll swap words, change the tense, change the focus of the sentence, play with verbs, tease the adjectives. I'm doing it now as I'm writing this entry. There's a reason why the Space and the Backspace on my keyboard have shiny, bald spots on them. I just can't let it go. How does one settle on a single word when there are so many to choose from?

I don't do well with having choices. Too many choices and I get lost and stressed. Too many images, too many words, too much freedom. I need walls and boundaries and confining circumstances. I need constraints and then I can channel all my energy at breaking them down. Give me all the freedom in the world and I fall apart, mired in confusion.

Tell me to write on the most boring and limiting topic and I'll jump at the challenge, infusing even the dullest concept with humor or passion or caustic sarcasm. But tell me to write whatever I want on any subject and I'll end as I often begin, with a blank page.