Words Words Words

Jen mentions Jason's big question — how the heck do bloggers have the time to write so much stuff? Jen is right about it being a habit and a discipline. You just get into it. When I was cleaning out my office the other day, I found my box of about ... 25 journals ... I've kept one on a daily basis for a long, long time.

Of course, one of the other non-secrets is once you have kids, you never sleep well again. I get up really early and work-out and write. Once my day starts to be busy, I don't usually get back to my blog. Some days yes, many days no.

Sometimes I save stuff in Blogger. I'll put it in, but not "publish" it until I need to, but that's rare. An example of that was the Emily Dickinson poem I published on the day my father died (April 9). I had put it into "storage" on my blog a few days before because things at the hospital were getting so bad, I knew he would be leaving us and I wanted to have a poem ready.

At the hospital, he was in the ICU on the fifth floor, the chapel was on the first floor — I spent a lot of time in there. Then one morning I noticed they had a medical library next to the chapel and I figured they must have net access there. I went in and the librarian set me up online. Since my email is @yahoo and my blogging is @Blogger.com, it was all there for me, as were many other friends and some family that couldn't be there. Was it weird to be online while someone was dying? Maybe. Was it comforting for me? Yes.