Off my game

Despite the fact that I didn't stick it through for all thirty of the NaBloPoMo days, I like to think I did pretty well. I remembered almost every day and posted almost every time I remembered. And they weren't no "Here's a post so I qualify" kind of posts either. I actually wrote stuff. Nothing along the lines of my new hero, Twisty Faster, or my less new hero, Laid-Off Dad (I shall never call him old), but I did OK. I was on a roll. And it felt good to be letting some of it out. I didn't realize how much I had to say. It was nearly addictive, I tell you.

So what happened? Here it is, nearly the middle of December, and I have, what, two posts for the whole month so far? Piffle. (I just checked, it's actually four. Yay me!)

I could dredge up the usual excuses of unseasonably warm weather drawing me outside; or the stresses of Christmas shopping and card-writing and travel plan-making that take up all my time; or the extra-specially needy dajamou who has been suddenly (probably due to the aforementioned Christmas havoc) having what we emotionally repressed parents tend to refer to as "accidents," and what I refer to (under my breath, natch) as "god damn messes that suck all the joy out of my day;" or any other number of reasons. But those reasons applied in November too, in large part. So what's the difference?

The difference, I have to conclude (which is really no surprise to anyone who knows me in any depth), is that if I don't have some kind of externally-applied motivation, some kind of commitment I've made to someone or something outside of myself, then I don't have the gumption (I love that word) to do things on my own with any kind of regularity. Is it guilt? Fear of being laughed at if I screw up? Who the heck knows?

I was hoping that the feeling of striving to do something creative would be a little more than nearly addictive. That I would pick up on the ol' clue phone and say "Hello! I like this whole writing every day thing! I think I'll keep it up even after the furor dies away!" And I'm sure that I wasn't alone in both this desire and the failing of it. (Do you fail of a desire? What is the grammar of desire?)

Well, I've pinpointed the root of the problem (or at least kind of shot-gunned the general area of my psyche that needs to be electro-shocked back to life), and mixed nearly every possible metaphor that I could, so I'm going to just say that I'm making a new, personal, just-to-me commitment to keep posting. If not every day, then at least every couple.

Well. I obviously should write more when I'm on the first tingle of my morning caffeine rush. This is fun! And crazy! And completely unreadable! Quick, someone press the Publish button before I get cold feet and erase this whole thing!