Writing: A Life, Sort Of

I'm toying with the notion of starting a second blog...

Even as I place that thought into type, I am shaking my head. Why would I do such a thing?

Here's why: because this is about to be precisely the kind of self-indulgent, narcissistic, navel-gazing post that I don't want to pin up here, and yet here I am writing it.

Also because I have this itch to pursue a life that centers around literature and creativity, and I can't shake it, and I want to talk about it.

While this itch has existed for as long as I can remember, time leaves me feeling like Perpetually Amateur Scratcher. I try to squeak in little bits of growth where I can - attending an evening writing workshop here, reading a book on craft there, eking out some writing (duh), trying to understand the meaning of the oft-repeated advice to "read deeply and widely" (what does that mean?) - and I guess I would like a place to debrief about these little bits of effort. I'd like it to be a place to hash my frustration as well; to occasionally wring my hands over the futility I sometimes feel from trying to keep this itchy part of my life going while providing a home and security for the Tornado Twins.

Sounds like wicked cheery stuff, doesn't it?

So what I'm toying with is a blog about my writing "life,": an(other) attempt at throwing down the pen-shaped gauntlet; a place of personal accountability for doing what I need to do to actualize this damn dream. If I clog up AficioNada with stuff like that, I might never get back around to the things you really want to know - like how do you hang a mailbox?

The idea of writing a blog about writing strikes me as both spot-on and totally defeatist. At 1 a.m., I voted spot-on. The fact that I'm still thinking about it when I should be immersed in my daylight life must mean something. Or not. Who knows?