A Hard-Won First Post

The first post is one of the hardest. Like a fresh notebook. Before you is laid the white space of obligation.


I guess I have performance anxiety.


Thankfully I have gotten to the point where the first page in a notebook is an enjoyably exciting step. As if someone had put before me a new chapter in the book of life. It is there for the taking, waiting to tell whatever it is I wish to say.


After that first step, momentum takes over.


Now a first post in a blog is a much more singular event than the first page of a notebook. The notebook, usually, is just one of many to come. Of course I could be the irresponsible father of countless blogs. In that case, maybe the first post wouldn't be so bad. That is not the case, though, and this first post for The Life Like Story was a tough one, born out of many drafts.


From here, the momentum, the writing, will take care of itself as long as I do my part. Which is to write. And to think. And write some more...


So I guess from this first post I re-learned what I 'knew' before; when in doubt of what to write, write.


Of course I learn that lesson over and over again with writing. To work with those ever present notions, which are sometimes stronger and other times weaker, of what to write, of why to bother. Those little notions take tiny bites but they gnaw persistently until you feel it deep within your chest; that growing sense of 'doomed to fail' what's-the-point-of-it-all-ism.


In the end, that is what makes writing precious to me; what went into it. The feeling it takes to write, the need to muster an intensity of focus upon your words. The sheen of pride and recognition often stems from the hard-won nature of a creation. And when a writer gives the beautifully dictated voice of their soul and mind, which is no doubt hardest of all dictations, the legend persists of the toil, tears and torture that wrought such beauty from a feeling, thinking being.