Storm In A Teacup

I am here at the page. A place I have not frequented on a regular basis all summer. At present I am trying to overcome jet lag and some lethargy. Of course jet lag cannot be the excuse for my lack of concentration and motivation throughout the whole summer. A summer where reading and writing required such mammoth effort.


But here I am now with my favorite pen in hand. Actually I have two identical favorite pens. Twins you could say.  One I always carry with me and the other is kept with my notebook. I brought both these pens to Ireland with me. Better to be sure than to be sorry, Right?! I was delighted I had the foresight to bring them both when pen one ran out of ink. I clutched pen two in my hand with a self satisfied grin and continued to write. About a week later pen two ran out of ink. I did not have the foresight to bring ink refills with me. I tried to find a replacement pen, one that words just couldn’t wait to leap from pen’s tip to the page but my efforts proved fruitless.

Could my lack of writing enthusiasm really boil down to the feel of a particular pen in my hand? An idea would flash into my head. I sat to the table, holding the replacement pen unhappily in my hand and wrote the first sentence of new flash. Replacement pen unlike favorite pen did not keep going. I stalled, I struggled, I stopped. The answer it seems is yes, it did boil down to the pen. 

Okay so maybe the pen was the reason I did not get much writing done. But reading….what happened there. In fairness, I can’t blame the pen for that. That comes down to a total lack of concentration. It took me forever to get through a book. My reading slowed to a snails pace.  Last summer I read no less than fifteen books. I wrote every day, I was productive. This summer I read only six books and wrote very little. In an attempt to console myself I took to editing writings from last summer. Telling the unconvinced voice nattering in my head that this was good! This was productive! This was writing too!

Adding to my angst, I lost patience with the slowness of my broadband computer service and just had to give up blog commenting to maintain some semblance of sanity. It was taking a year and a day to post a comment, never mind the loading a blog to read it. Then there were the blogs I had to just give up altogether. Beautiful, wonderful blogs, but my computer totally refused to load them. Dispatches from the Deise, Writing in the Crosshairs, Agnes Pages, Diary of a Virgin Novelist, and Walk2Write in Florida. I am looking forward to catching up with your wonderful blogs. I have missed you.

The thoughts swirling around in my head, keeping me awake at night and paralyzing my hand these past weeks are, "Am I just a storm in a teacup? Is my lack of concentration and inability to produce a sign I’m all used up. A has been before I have been and a ten month blog wonder?" I dread the thought, because this year of writing and blogging has been a year of great contentment for me.  I have experienced an inner soul type of contentment.  Something I have been grasping at and chasing all my life.

So what is the moral of this little tale? Well first off, not only bring both favorite pens everywhere, also bring multiple ink refills.

Hopefully the storm in my teacup was only momentary and my muse….my writing mojo will grace me with it's presence once again!  Fingers crossed.