Lancing the Boil

I don't get writer's block. That's what I tell myself. I can always knuckle down and put words to paper in a workmanlike fasshion. I don't get blocked. But I do get distracted by shiny objects. And very occasionally, get distracted by things that seem very big and dark.

Meditations on Violence, my first published book was essentially a big psychic vomit. Some things that had been in my head, swelling. Things that didn't settle and go away no matter how much I poked at them. Maybe psychic vomit is the wrong word. More like an infected wound.

There's been another one building for the last six months or so. I've barely written on my (other) blog. Barely been able to write on even the projects I'm excited about. Everything seemed so trivial next to these thoughts and, honestly, I was hating the world a bit. Wondering how such a thing could happen and how it could be accepted or invisible to everyone. How it had been invisible to me for a lifetime until I got the verbal slap.

It's been on my mind, and interfering with a lot of things for six months or more. K and MS both have called me on it, repeatedly. Usually, I have a good perspective and regain equilibrium quickly with dark things. But this wasn't settling. It occurred to me, finally, that this isn't my first rodeo. What happened last time poking at things in my own head wasn't working? Meditations on Violence is what happened.

So I wrote it out. It felt like lancing an infected wound. The brain freed up. And, like many things, on paper it doesn't look so big. It still is big, but not as monolithic and unassailable as it had been in my head.

Probably won't share it beyond a very small circle of friends, but that's not the point. The pressure is released. Time to get some work done.