Scattered Thoughts

I’ve had trouble focusing lately . . . a million ideas for topics have come to me, but none of them solidifies into a complete post. In my next life (maybe after I’m finished with the half-marathon), I would like to have a blogging mentor and really take this blog somewhere. So in the absence of a coherent post, I will share my scattered thoughts.

It’s Ash Wednesday and I’m contemplating giving up Facebook for Lent. Is it okay that I decided halfway through the day? I don’t know why I didn’t think about it ahead of time. I’m sure it would be good for me. Despite my grand plans for only using it intentionally and for only half an hour a day, I wasted approximately an hour this morning looking at absolutely nothing worthwhile or helpful. So why am I reluctant to go cold turkey? Well, I have had occasions recently to use it professionally. It can be helpful for social interaction. And perhaps after the Daniel Fast, I’m just a tad bit worn out with the idea of fasting anything.

That being said, I’m going to do it. I know it will save me from wasting time and God knows I need that right now! My blog will still post to Facebook. I can do that via twitterfeed and hootsuite without getting sucked into the vortex of the Facebook world. And I will make exceptions for professional reasons. But, do I really need it for anything else? My phone still rings . . . and you can email me–there’s a “contact me” link on the side of my blog.

In other news, I just read this post about writing naked and have been both inspired and terrified. I’ve written before about the struggle between being a private person and having a blog. I DO believe in writing naked. I really, really, do. There’s no way I would have shared last week’s post if I didn’t. My struggle comes when writing naked also strips your family and your friends. You just can’t do that. It’s not fair. And in a sense I can’t be completely open without exposing loved ones. I also don’t really know all of you that well. I may share something over a cup of coffee that I’m not willing to spout to the world at large. So I do my own little dance around the issues, instead of being completely real. I wrap a towel around myself instead of writing naked. Sometimes. Sometimes I hold up a towel to cover my friends. I write naked in my journal. And I write fiction.

Speaking of which, I need to start working on my next work in progress—or deciding what that will be now that my previous novel is “complete”. I once had a professor who said (regarding college papers), “It’s never finished, we just hand it in.” So I guess that’s how I feel about the novel I’ve “finished”. It’s time to move on, not that I won’t revisit that book before you see it on the shelves of your local bookstore.

And now that I’ve sworn off Facbook for forty days, I should have plenty of time to write fiction. Hmmm . . . perhaps I should seek an invitation to join Pinterest.