I am writing this with my back to my iMac using my wireless keyboard, my feet up on my bed and my mind unclouded by anything on the computer screen that might distract me – I hope.
I love to write. I have (almost) two masters degrees in writing. Everything over the past decade has pointed me in the direction of writing. So why is it so difficult? why do I find so many reasons not to write, but instead to surf, to Tweet, to read others’ Tweets, to do the New Yorker online jigsaw puzzle?
I am enjoying writing with my back to the computer. I wouldn’t use this technique for my actual thesis – I could never ever forgive myself if I messed up the formatting or structure or anything else that the formal document contains. But I could work on portions in a new, blank document, then turn around and see what I’ve got. I wonder how far I would get.
I am, however, getting distracted by how blue the veins are on the inner sides of my feet, and how soon I should consider shaving my legs. As long as the cat doesn’t wander in meowing I should be okay.
Let’s see…I have been struggling with being oh so close to finishing the section of my thesis that starts with me in UU (Unitarian-Universalist) camp at 14. What I want to do is incorporate the history of these UU camps, perhaps even the Unitarian church itself, as a theology and a social phenomenon. I just haven’t yet found the way to make it all fit together. Should I even do it? I at least want to discuss the history and development of UU youth groups.
Maybe with my back to the computer I will better figure out the parts of my research that have relevance to my personal UU experience. Did you know that Unitarianism has its roots in 16th-century Poland and Transylvania? Isn’t that interesting as hell? The question is how we get from Poland in the 1500s to a 20th-century summer camp.
I turn my back on writing! Let’s go.
Ruth Nasrullah 