When I think about writing, I generally have some differing opinions. First, writing is arcane. There is a magic to it. You think something, you write it down, other people read it and internalize the message, thereby converting it into their own thoughts. Magic!*

Second, writing is work. I have a million and one ideas all the time racing around in my head for what to write about, but the minute I sit down in front of the computer or with my journal and pen I am completely lost. I doodle, or I google, or I spend time cleaning up ancient blog posts or playing Bookworm or FTL. The work of writing drives all the creative animus out of me, and I end up either farting around with something trivial or time-wasting, or I give up and go do something else. Usually playing Bookworm or FTL….

Third, deep, deep down in the dusty, spider-infested, creaky, junk-filled corners of my psyche I have this belief that things that I post on the Internet should be Important. Even if they’re not important to everyone else, they should be Important to me. If I’m not writing about something I’m passionate about, I should really just stop trying to blog anything at all and just write my name five hundred times in my Moleskine journal.

Fourth, in the same area as the idea that I should be writing about Important Things is the sneaky suspicion that I’m just not good enough at writing to do this. The imposter syndrome of which so many pop-psychs speak, wherein people (usually read as “women,” but should be read as “people”) believe that they don’t actually deserve their successes. For me, it manifests as a sense of dissociation. I feel like I’m in a poorly-constructed fantasy that will be blown apart as soon as a mysterious “someone” pops out of the woodwork and shouts, “Aha! You are a fraud!”

So here we are. Specious Logic. Whether I’m good enough or not, whether I’m worthy or not, I’m going to be trying to post some thoughts on a semi-regular basis. Being me, these thoughts will be 60% bullshit that I pulled out of my (ample) assets, and 40% researched-to-hell-and-back-my-god-why-are-there-so-many-citations. I like to form my half-baked opinions on research. It’s a thing.

Speciously yours,

Wendy

*sometimes I imagine myself in a pointy, black, wide-brimmed hat and a raggedy black robe standing over a smoking, glowing cauldron throwing in word-snippets and sentence fragments and cackling madly…