More was not enough.

I was thinking the other day "You know, I really should start a blog".  Then, slowly, I started to have a vague recollection that in fact, I do have a blog. Or, rather, had a blog. During those frenzied days of thesis writing I had to keep my fingers moving at all times. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I drank fizzy water by the gallon as I typed. I moved my workspace like a nomad, writing as much as I could until that space was "used up" and I had to find a new novel place to set up camp. I burned through my laptop's keyboard (still under warranty, whew!).

I wrote some good stuff, I wrote a lot of bad stuff and apparently wrote a whole lot of stuff I completely forgot about. Back then, more was more. More was what I needed. More words, more outlets, more wheels spinning. And then I was done. I had written, in my committee's opinion, enough.
And so I stopped writing.

Years have gone by and I have recently had to face the fact that when you stop writing, your writing gets weaker. It's no surprise that writing, like any skill, must be practiced to be maintained. But it's still a shock when you think you can still run a loop around the park without stopping to find yourself dry heaving in the bushes a quarter of the way around.

So I am going to take it easy at first.

A lot has changed since I started this blog, including my mindset, and More is More just wasn't doing it for me. I needed a new mantra for this very different post-graduate school phase of my life. In this new realm, there are new rules to be learned. New paths to explore. New lessons to be learned--the hard way, of course.

Lesson #1: Don't drop your toast.