On writing...

Almost three months since my last post...  I didn't expect the hiatus to be quite this long, but as usual, it's only when I return to the blog that I realize just how long it's been since I've written something last.

I haven't been entirely unproductive in the intervening time.  In fact, I think I've made a larger and more determined push to write recently than any I can recall.  And it's all been for nothing.

I feel the need to write.  It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I crave the satisfaction that comes with seeing a well-crafted sentence on the screen in front of me.  But all these sentences need to add up to something and lately they don't.  Whatever I write feels flat.  There are occasional flashes of goodness - paragraphs that light up and flow effortlessly - and in their light I can immediately see just how flat and barren the surrounding text is. 

I can't connect to what I'm writing.  Without that connection, it's just words on the page.  It's a school essay written under duress on a topic that you have absolutely no interest in.  And that I think is the problem...  The topic.

I've been trying to write stories about a life I can no longer identify with.  Every "how to write" book will tell you to write about what you know.  But what it doesn't tell you is that it's not enough to know about something in order to write about it.  My writing has always relied on my emotions to feed it.  I know about and I've experienced a lot of things.  In some ways I've lived a more varied life than most people I know, but that's of no help to me right now.  None of the things that I know about or have experienced are arousing the sort of emotions and feelings that I need in order to be able to write and write well.

I can't fool myself into thinking that what I've written in recent months is good writing.  I know good writing.  I know my good writing and this isn't it.