Envy

I really envy people who can write well and they make writing  such an effortless activity.  I often found myself with so many ideas but when I sit in front of a computer nothing comes out.  I guess my ideas like to sit in my brain because it's so comfortable up there.  Come on ideas!  Come out.

I went through my blog list and noticed that a few of my fellow bloggers have not been writing for quite sometime also.  My guess is, either work or FB or both have taken up much of their time.  That's what happened to me.  Now that I don't have classes to deal with, I better force my brain to cooperate.  Lately, I found myself becoming less attracted to post events on my FB.  I used to take my camera everywhere I went and snapped just about anything I saw so that I could post them in my FB.  But after a while it gets old.  I started thinking who cares what I did or saw or ate anyway!  It makes me think that what I did was so trivial and nothing could be learned from any of them.  Then I decided, if I don't have anything worthwhile to post, I better not do it (well, not too often anyway).

Two of my daughters love to write.  In fact they have participated in a few writing competitions and they even won a couple of times.  One of them used to have a blog but somehow she closed it!  I still do not know the exact reason for her to take that drastic step.  Anyway, the other one asked me if she could write in my other blog which has been abandoned for so long.  I think I am going to hand it over to her.  I hope both of them will be famous writers someday.

Writers Block

Salam, hello, hi, aloha, etc.
Writer's block? What is that? It's a big word for an excuse:) Well I hate it when I feel like writing so much but I just could not put anything on paper, or in this case, in my blog. I just realized that I only wrote once in the month of February! Suddenly on Monday, I saw an article in the classified section of the NST newspaper about overcoming writer's block. I said, whoa, the writer must be talking about me. According to the writer, writer's block is caused by a variety of reasons such as "social, academic, and personal factors which increase our stress level and interrupt the free flow of ideas". Yeah, tell me about it. But the good news is, it can be overcome by following a few steps: brainstorm and organize, uninhibited writing, and grouping. If you want to know the details, you just have to read the article.

Social? I can think of one social reason for me. I am very busy coordinating a talk which will be conducted by a young convert at my neighborhood mosque, at my kids' school, and at my work place. The idea of inviting this young speaker came at around the time that I stopped writing! Wow, I don't even realize that the coordinating job is very stressful. No wonder I cannot write.

Academic? Definitely. At the moment I am swarmed with mid-terms to be graded. Well, it's not like reading the Twilight Saga, ok? Some of the stuff the students wrote can give someone a heart attack. I am teaching 5 sections of writing classes! Yes, isn't that ironic! I guess it's a lot easier telling students to write than doing it my self. So I must be gentle on them;)

Personal factors? Wow, this is the main bulk of the problem. I know just the biggest personal interference of my writer's block problem! It's definitely something to do with my moving into a new house. Boy, moving is no joke. My family and I have officially moved into our new house last December but the process of cleaning, repacking, etc has not finished yet. In fact there are still boxes and plastic bags in the old place that need to be scrutinized before we transport them to the new place. We are given until the end of the month to do that. By hook or by crook, everything must be hauled by the 31st of March. No wonder I am so stressed out. The pictures below are the proofs of the mess that we still have at the old place.