A voice from the past ...

It has been a long time hasn’t it? When I wrote my last post about my dad’s death I thought .... well I don’t know exactly what I thought. Maybe that with his passing I would turn to writing for comfort to help me work through all those feelings of loss.

Instead I froze. And with each passing day the words seemed further away. I have for now quite some time wanted to get back to this, to the writing, to what makes me feel best. But I would open my computer and stare at a blank page. I would write and then realize what I wrote was not what I wanted to say, it was whining and grumpy and not in the least bit creative.

I woke up more than a few nights, in the middle of the night, that place between sleep and waking with some brilliant idea for something to write. Not awake enough, or smart enough to grab a pen and paper and write it down. More often, in that dreamy comfortable place where I longed to go back to sleep to find out where the thought lead. Only to awake the next morning and not be able to recall the idea, or just recall a little shadow of the idea and only find myself constantly frustrated by some thought racing around in my already overcrowded brain but not being able to bring it to the fore.

I miss dad more than I even thought I would. Mom has been gone for fourteen years now and I still every once in a while think how I wish I could call her and ask a question, get her opinion, just talk to her. It doesn’t happen as often now but it still happens. But quite often now I see something ... a book, a movie, a song, a news story, and the first thought is that I want to pick up the phone and chat with dad about it.

I have however been devouring books, trying to reengage my creative mind that seemed to be lying dormant, hiding from the pain of rejection and that infernal internal critic.

I allowed the guilt to overtake me the other day. It was the first of November, you know the beginning of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days??? No, stop, don’t worry, no need to slap me, I didn’t sign up, I at least knew better than that. But I have seen my writerly friends jumping in head first, damn the guilt, and the internal critics and sometimes even damn the other things on their to-do list, to attempt and to conquer NaNoWriMo.

I will watch from the sidelines this year. Maybe I’ll get something close to a novel, or a short story -- or several, or many blog posts written in the same time, but I won’t advertise it and I won’t beat myself up if I come nowhere close to 50,000 words or a novel. I will enjoy the writing and finding my creative voice again. I can tell it is itching to get out ... by the constant buzz that goes on in my head, the ideas zinging around trying to create the spark.

My father’s death was like a turning point in my life, or should I say another one. I know that his passing will change the way I write some things in the memoir. It still sits there waiting for me to finish revisions. I have a plan with an editor who is waiting for me to be ready to send it to her .. that is down the road a bit. I even had the stupid idea to start completely over and make it fiction, but I’ve gone back and forth on that idea several times now.

I should tell you, not exactly sure where this blog will go. I have missed you all and hope that those who have been patient enough to stick around will continue to do so, will comment and join me on the continuing journey. I know one of my next posts may be a little political, my own comment on the Occupy movement brought on by other comments I read regarding the protests.

As I told someone not long ago, I had an idea to rename this blog “Snippets” because I feel like that is what it will be, snippets of my life (diving, reading, writing -- not necessarily in that order or all at once), snippets of those things that strike me as important enough to bring up, snippets of my writing (maybe), and snippets of some other incredible writing that some people I know and respect are doing.

For now, the name will remain the same. Would love your thoughts and suggestions as we go along, how to make it better or if I have maybe caused you to ruminate on a subject yourself.

Thanks for sticking it out with me. I hope to make the wait worthwhile, sometime in the not too distant future.

Special thanks to consitently make me want to be a writer and a good one at that, and who somehow keep holding me up when I feel like I’m going to fall .... MendiD at First Grade Tales, E. Victoria Flynn at Penny Jar, Christi Craig at Christi Craig Rebecca Rasmussen @ The Bird Sisters, Beth Foulkes Lowe at Pine Meadow Pond and Susan Bearman at Two Kinds of People, and of course my little girl ... Cait Jeffs at Cait's Images.