On Writing

After my file was 'cleared' by Protocol Education last week, I was so hoping to be able to work every day this week: but, hell's bells, nothing's happened so far today. So while subconsciously I'm holding thumbs for a call from them, I've been working steadily at my writing - and this doesn't just mean the actual process of putting words down, but the checking of my blog stats, readership levels, what forms of publicity are working etc. It also means hunting for the right kind of places on which to have my blog listed, and also being a regular participant in forums on these sites... (sigh) A lot of elbow grease and wrist-strain and screen glare to get more and more people reading what I write.
It's a strange thing, this, to be a writer. Some days I feel like all I do is pontificate and sprout general bull**** about me, me and more of me. But then on other days, I feel like if I don't write about a certain story, I'll just explode with NOT sharing it! Some days are filled with dark, ugly doubts which eat away at my self-confidence when I wonder what everyone thinks when they get a "Lisa Has Updated Her Blog" email in their inbox. Is it a case of, "Oh noooo!!! Not AGAIN!" or something else? I subscribe to a fair number of blogs - and must admit that I am not a regular reader as much as one that reads when she has time. I suspect that's the case for almost everyone, hey?
Though I've bitched and moaned about not having any work since I arrived in the UK, it has been a lifechanging time of reflection and discovery for me: I am a writer almost more than I am an artist! And yes, I studied art at university and I've been calling myself an artist since I can remember - but I've learned that writing is the skin in which I feel the most comfortable - and the work is so much more satisfying than the art EVER was... I write every single day - and it feels like good, hard labour to me! Yet with my art and drawing, it was always this fight inside me to get anything out...
OK. Enough about that! Time to get some more of that paint scraped off the old, delicate carvings on the wardrobe for Layla Rose's nursery before heading off into the bleak darkness of the late afternoon to pick Craig up from school...