Baggage.

Everyone has baggage, right? That's an old cliche' that's supposed to be true for every person on the planet, especially for writers. More especially, for female writers. Especially, especially, and more especially, for college-age, female writers.

(I could go on to describe how listening to music such as The Cure and having a history of dating nothing but jackasses causes me to become an even more true case of having baggage, but I won't.)

So, yeah; I have baggage. I don't deal with it as well as some people do. I can't just have a good cry and be done with it. Ice Cream Therapy isn't a lasting cure for me.

Personally, I have to write to git 'r done.

Condense everything that seems too big to deal with; restrain it, wrestle with it, forcing it to be restricted to a few, simple words. Once it's tied down to a few words on a page, then it is controlled, and then I can breathe.

As you can tell from both of my posts, I take writing as a serious process. Seldom can I write heartlessly, for I see it as a much bigger ordeal. For me, writing can express more than a greeting to a friend. Think of how you feel when you receive a hand-written letter in the mail. Was your day just made? Thought so. Maybe your favorite professor scribbled a little note at the end of your 15-page paper saying nothing but the two little words, 'great job.' Those two little words just reinstated you as a decent human being, right? I know. Believe me, I know.

Write with purpose, dear friends. You never know whose day you'll make. Or whose baggage you'll dilute.

When I least expect it...

Sometimes, writing can do nothing but choke someone. It's as if your whole body cannot, will not breathe unless some words are put on the page. At least that's how I feel. Because when inspiration strikes, whether it's a word, a phrase, a character, it has to escape.

Your fingers sort of tremble a little as your pencil is weighed down with so much to say. Your jaw clenches as every fiber of your mind restrains in attempt to focus everything through that small pencil lead.

I wonder if this is normal. Maybe I just have seizures from time to time.