A time for whittling down

I'm told that when the you have nothing to write about, the trick is to just write. I'm curious if that works the same way for blogging, because it would seem that I've had very little to blog about.

This used to be a place of great creative output. Some of the things I wrote were turbulent outbursts from a passionate place deep inside of me. A year ago I had all sorts of public thoughts. Diatribes, even. But it would seem that those days are long gone and I feel bad about that. I mean, there isn't much that's new for the few of you who faithfully check this site.

The funny thing is, though this place has been oddly quiet, I'm actually wrestling with my writing more than I've ever done before. I've been sharing very little of it with anyone and producing even less, but I've been tending to the fruit of my sowing - lovingly trimming branches, watering sections, seeing what good blossoms might be plucked.

Yesterday afternoon, I had a rather serendipitous meeting with a group of aspiring writers. I was sitting in the patio's catbird seat at Broadway Cafe when a nearby group caught my attention. I just happened to be reading the same instructional writing book as one of them (Anne Lamott's - Bird by Bird). This happy little coincidence led one of the members to invite me over to join their discussion group and ultimately, their writing club.

One of the guys asked each of us what we're looking for from the group. Some people want to be published (strangely, not me) or learn to create compelling characters (also, not me). When he asked me, without hesitation I said that I wanted focus my thoughts. I need to see if these abstract ideas make sense to someone else. I want to edit them down to something beautiful and tight and understandable.

I want to reap what I've sown wildly into the wind.

It should be no surprise that I lovelovelove the message in chapter 3 of Ecclesiastes (or the Byrd's "Turn, Turn,Turn" for the music fans in the crowd). There is a season for everything and that's beautiful for people like me who like to go 90 to nothing. I need separate times for reaping or sowing. For creativity or rest. For birth or death.

This is the beginning of my season of whittling, reaping, picking and cultivating.

Though this space may suffer for it, there is "a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them" and my pockets are full of pretty little rocks.