Babble on

I prattle. I ramble. I babble on … and on … and on. I know I do. And I apologize for doing it here just because I can. You can’t imagine the number of posts that never got posted, just because some inner voice screamed, “Enough, you stupid old woman! You’re doing it again.”

I have a similar problem with conversation, what little I engage in these days. Once I finally do start talking with someone, it’s like a dam breaking! Argh. Later I get so embarrassed about having done it, I swear never to open my mouth again. If only I could throttle it while I’m talking. I used to do it with my dad and he’d just laugh and say I was excited. Hmm.

Anyway, what was it I was going to write about? Oh, yes — discipline. Writing discipline. I need some. I should impose some. Maybe by trying to adhere to certain writing forms, by making a game of it, a challenge. Limit my posts to x number of words (probably better readership than the long posts anyway). Stick to a certain poetry form, maybe. Haiku! (I blame Sank for the idea.) Now there’s some discipline!

I ran a little experiment the other day. How long would a 100-word post be? What would it look like? I pulled up an old draft and chopped chunks off the bottom until the WP counter showed 100 words. (If you’re curious, the first two paragraphs of this post total 124 words.) Nope, not likely to try that very often.

Then sometimes, like right now, it occurs to me that maybe I’m not really writing here. Maybe I’m just thinking out loud. Or talking to “imaginary friends.” Uh oh. Or maybe … doh! … maybe I’m talking to myself! That’s supposed to be the first sign …

“Enough, you stupid old woman! You’re doing it again.”