Allllrighty

At some point over the holidays (or... whenever), I read a quote from some author (yeah, I totally forget) saying that his method of writing his books is to write (I'm paraphrasing) "two hundred crappy words a day."  (He said shitty, but you know.. I'll be polite.)  I didn't read far into it but he said that sitting down every day to write two hundred words that didn't need to be good often lead to more than two hundred words and they often weren't all that crappy. 

So I thought about it for a few weeks (months?) and figured, well, what the hell, I can probably write two hundred crappy words a day, can't I?  I don't have a fiction story to tell.  In fact, I haven't the faintest idea how authors go about doing that, it seems like some kind of miracle to my mind.  (And yes, I know there are courses and classes and things I could read...)  But maybe if I just sat down to write every day, like I've done with photographs and like I've done with art, maybe just the practice of "writing" every day would bring me something.  Or not.

So for the last three days I've reminded myself at night to just type out two hundred words before I shut things down for the night.  And, so I have about eight hundred words that aren't really any thing other than me talking to an audience that doesn't exist about whatever it was that was on my mind that particular night.

Which... is what I used to do here.  Kind of.  But not really?

Authors (and those who study authors) talk about "voice".  And I get it.  I've always gotten it, but now especially I "get" get it.  This blog has a certain voice.  I have a way of writing here that has been going on for more than ten years.  There are things I don't talk about, and things I don't mention and there is also a particular way I write.  It's not quite the same as the writing I do in, say a journal/diary, or this two hundred crappy words a day thing I'm half contemplating.  Perhaps critics could recognize it as both from the same writer, but to me?  Writing them feels different.  It's interesting.

I did think that I could/should (?) just publish those two hundred words here, but then I thought I'd maybe rather not, at least not now.  But it did bring up the question, again, of the writing block I've had here since my life took a sharp turn towards "really fucking difficult" a few years back and the block I continue to have in terms of what to say.  I mean, this is me talking about my life.. for the most part.  But I'm not comfortable doing that when I have a lot of health and other aspects that I'm struggling with.  And fear.  Talking about fear and dealing with fear make everything that much harder.  In so so many ways.

But, I digress.  Kind of.

My brother is home and ok and resting and feeling fairly positive about going forward from here.  I know that now he'll be more aware of things and that he'll have extra care from the medical system and specialists.

Me?  I am waiting to go over my results with my doctor and seeing what suggestions she has for me and where I want to go.  I don't have enough information right now to piece together much.  Things might be totally fine (with some elevated cholesterol to deal with, ugh).  They might be medium fine with some things to watch.  Or, of course, they could be not so great and have the potential for needing intervention. 

I went through my old medical files (that I got when my doctor retired and my new doctor doesn't want... go figure) and managed to find old tests that suggested the same issue, so I'm reminding myself that I haven't died of it so far so... you know, maybe, probably not going to today?  I'm a little frustrated that my doctor didn't inform me of the abnormal results when they were first told, but perhaps she decided they weren't worth mentioning.  We'll see my new doctor's take on it, with additional information and the now evident "family history" aspect.  Sigh.


So, as I said, we're all a little shaken here.  Changes are in the process of being made, and I'm waiting to hear what, if anything should/will change for me. 

Here's hoping for the best and that I can make some changes happen without too much difficulty (ha!) and that I go forward in even better health this year.