Tangible Thoughts

After finishing the sending out of more than 500 holiday e-cards (I know, a lot of people hate them, but tough cooky!) to the readers and prospective readers on my mailing list, I then turned my attention to writing a blog for tomorrow.

I brought up a blank screen and poised my hands over the keyboard, ready to begin. It was only then I realized I hadn't a clue as to what to say. The screen and I engaged in a staring contest. It won, though my hands remained poised until they slowly sank of their own weight to rest their heels on the edges of the keyboard.

What does one say when one can think of nothing to say? (Well, I suppose one can ponder the possible affectation of one's using the word "one" too often.) It's a temporary condition, I'm sure...probably just a delayed reaction to typing all those names and email addresses, which tend to dull the mind. This situation is, in fact, not all that uncommon. I frequently start a blog without having any real idea of where I'm going to go with it. It's kind of fun, sometimes, like starting out on a walk through an unfamiliar woods without knowing where you'll end up or what you may come across along the way.

Okay, so I'll do a blog on a walk through the mental woods. Good. Went to the top of the page and titled the blog "A Walk Through the Mental Woods." And as soon as I typed it, one of my little mind voices (I gave Dick Hardesty a similar trait) suggested it should be "A Walk Through the Mental Ward." Okay, scratch that title.

(In case you haven't noticed, you have, however willingly or unwillingly, joined me for a brief journey on my train of thoughts.)

Thoughts. Now there's a topic. Mental telepathy aside, thoughts are incapable of being conveyed without the use of either the voice or the written word. (We'll leave the argument of the various forms of art being a valid means of conveying thought to another time.)

While I am very poor at what they call "multi-tasking"--doing more than one thing at once--I find it nearly impossible for my mind not to be running off in several directions at the same time. And not one of them worthy of a tinker's dam until it is written down. Spoken words are "now"...once they leave the mouth, they are irretrievable and gone forever--which does not mean, however, that they are not capable of becoming ghosts which return to haunt you. When I speak I seem incapable of saying what I want to say in the way I want to say it.

Thoughts are a gas; written words are a solid. If need be, a written word can be touched, and cut out of a piece of paper and rearranged. Anything that can be touched can be controlled. I may not know, as I look at the stacks and piles of seemingly random written words, exactly where--or even if--they fit into a larger picture. But I know that, again, is one of the reasons I write. It is only by putting things down in writing that I'm able to arrange them in some semblance of order. In writing, each word is like a piece of the puzzle. They can be rearranged, and moved around until I find exactly where they should go.

I in fact frequently have the protagonists in my books refer to the mystery they're trying to solve as a jigsaw puzzle. I guess that's pretty much the way I see my own life. My mind constantly churns out an endless array of thoughts that I am always in danger of being overwhelmed by their sheer volume. Like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, I know there must be a reason why they show up, and that most of them belong somewhere. But it's only by putting them in writing that they become tangible, and enable me to get an idea of where they belong in the overall picture of my life.

And so I have, as I always do, managed to have found another picture in the jigsaw puzzle of thoughts to come up with a blog, and perhaps demonstrated something of a thought process which, I can hope, may not be all that much different than your own.

New entries are posted by 10 a.m. Central time every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Please come back...and bring a friend. Your comments are always welcome. And you're invited to stop by my website at http://www.doriengrey.com, or drop me a note at doriengrey@gmail.com.