It is astonishing how difficult writing can be when you don't do it. Writing,as much as many other skills, requires constant practice; but more than most other skills, writing is by its very nature fluidity. To communicate well is to be fluid, and the highest complement one can pay a writer is to say that his ideas flow. Flow, the easy movement from one idea to another, is the genius of writing itself.
There is only one way to achieve that, and it is to open that vein, and let the life flow.
And do it every day. Although I don't post to this site very often, I have in fact been writing. Several personal projects that I hope to publish one day. And I write by text and social media. For me, Facebook has been a bit of a poison, and I have noticed in recent months that I have posted short bits on Facebook that were good enough to go here, but somehow ended up diverted and lodged there.
Why? Because Facebook seems so casual. It feels like writing on water, the words vanishing even as they are sent out, even though the truth is otherwise. On my own website, I have sought permanence, a level of perfection that was hard to achieve on a daily basis. So instead, I wrote and posted less here. I left good ideas scattered elsewhere, because elsewhere there seemed less demand for perfection.
Then fluidity went, the kiss of death. So maybe I lower my standards a little bit, and look to produce looser, freer material. And more of it.
Call it a New Year's resolution, or a recalibration of purpose. All I know is that I am not done thinking yet.