Playdate?

A while ago – ranging from about 18 months ago to last September – I ran a loosely organized sort of … ugh, what is the word?  A carnival, I think: when a handful of bloggers post something of a similar vent all on the same day.  Yes: here.  Each Wednesday, anywhere from two or three of us to a dozen or so would post to the tune of a shared title.  Then we’d sit back and read, and see a variety of responses to a simple word or phrase.

I enjoyed it, but after a while I let it slack off, and hadn’t thought of it for a while.

Then, March happened, and turned my whole world up-side-down.  Among other long-term issues stemming from it, I have had problems with word retrieval and memory.  Words don’t come easily to me anymore; once upon a time, a blog post was a matter of 10 or 15 minutes, and the phrases and paragraphs simply flowed, brain to keyboard to internet, with no more effort than it took to prepare a bowl of cereal.  Now, it takes me at least an hour to be able to articulate the main idea of a post, and it can take several days to write and edit and rewrite and re-edit until I have created something that is at least remotely articulate.

I’ve considered deleting the blog entirely, or going on indefinite hiatus, or taking some other form of break from it, in hopes that my cognitive issues will repair themselves over time.  But instead, I think what I need to do is step up the challenge to my brain again; instead of taking the easy (not to mention, in-law-delighting) course of action, I think I need, instead, to push myself harder.

For one thing, I need to post more often… I don’t know exactly how frequently, yet, but I’m going to aim for three posts per week.  Quite the change, when it used to be difficult for me, sometimes, to limit myself to only one post per day.  I’m going to push for more detailed, flowing, narrative sorts of posts, instead of simple, here’s-how-I’m-sick-now updates.  And I’m going to return to a structured, weekly, planned post, to try and get myself back into the sort of creative, personal writing I used to enjoy so much.  Even when I was writing about unpleasant things, I enjoyed the process of writing; I miss that, now.

So, can I interest anyone in joining me?  It used to be on Wednesdays, is that the best day for anyone else,  or will I be on my own here?  The more the merrier, you know… I always loved finding out just how different the responses were to a shared prompt.  And whether you’d like to join in or not – and you can always post a Facebook note, if you would like to play along but don’t want to start a blog – would you please give me some ideas for topics?  Anything, really, any word at all, any phrase, whatever you’d like to write about, or read about.

I can’t revert many of the changed aspects of my life back to their original forms; my body is scarred, and my emotions shaken.  But I can start to reform certain things, and if they don’t resemble their former styles, I can maybe make something new.  Wanna play?