A dim glow

If you’re a regular reader [shout out to the 2 or 3 people who fit that category :)] you may have noticed my writing has slowed to a dribble.

In this year when “you do you” is the mantra of every magazine, I’ve found it easier to enjoy my fellow writers who produce posts nearly every day even though I rarely even measure up to my once-a-week goal. Our connected world certainly curses us with aspirations while it blesses us with encouragement.

I’ve been analyzing a few reasons why my well of words produces little these days. For one, I’m tired. It’s the natural combination of the beginning of a busy school year, including some additional mental power thrown toward the class I’m teaching.  Tired people aren’t creative people, and I’m terrible at putting down the book or screen and just going to bed.

For another, my skim-journeys through the Interwebs remind me that pretty much everyone out there has already written on it, whatever “it” happens to be in my hopper. Want good theological writing about current events? It’s out there. Want a professor’s tongue-in-cheek review of a literary work? It’s out there. Want to rot your brain with snarky jabs? Just drop into your local social media stream. Want to watch people scream at one another about the issue du jour? You can’t escape it.  Some days I struggle to convince myself that the practice of writing is worth foisting yet more words on the rest of you.

Ideas are ephemeral….. I might dream up a great plan for a post on my drive into work but the barrage of email and tasks rapidly obliterates any energy I had for creative writing. If I do put ink to paper, it’s probably in the service of a marketing campaign. So true that there’s only so much creative power available for one day.

So this is my note to myself, reminding me it’s ok not to produce at times, not to throw myself on a treadmill just because I feel like I should.

Enjoy the Saturday, friends! I know many of you are glued to the TV for college game day. I’m going to go glue myself to a giant pile of magazines I would like to clear from my reading backlog. 🙂