When I am thinking about my "writing"--- and I mean writing of the major kind--stories, novels, important things, I tend to delay and delay and think and delay and not get anything down because I don't want to even BEGIN until I know I can do it perfectly and it will be right and I know what I'm doing. Yes, logically I know that is like Lance Armstrong not getting on a bike until the day the Tour de France starts.

I tried writing my Christmas letter this week, which is not "important" like a story or a novel, but it is something I do each year and some folks have come to expect it from me and they make a good show of enjoying it. I started it and restarted it and dove in and wrote even though I knew it wasn't right. I went back and tried it in a different format and started over again. I'm still not finished with it and I certainly don't see myself as a failure because it didn't flow off the tips of my fingers on the first try. I am quite willing to work it out on the Christmas letter, less willing on something more important. I need to learn from that.

I am also learning with the holidailies entries this week that I am feeling more compelled to write because I AM writing. Writing begets writing (or would that be begats and what does either one of those words mean anyway?). I find myself wanting to write, I find myself thinking of more interesting topics and cohesive items to put in here (yes, yes, I know you haven't seen any of those cohesive essays just yet). I just need to translate some of this need to write onto a Word doc and not just here and e-mails.

It is already Monday, dammit, and I've hardly settled into the weekend. This isn't the "real" Monday entry and I haven't covered my Sunday with the journalers so I'll have a double entry day and get to that in the morning.