My day has periods of silence. Silence in my office hours, silence when I walk to the Student Union for lunch, lots of silence when I work at home on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
In the silence, I ruminate about my faults, about whether I am a good person. I think this is not necessarily a bad thing, because I remind myself that I don’t want to have those failings, and I decide to think a different way. In fact, I decide I’m a pretty normal person in the good/bad continuum. I come out of this feeling pretty okay.
Perhaps my reflections are excessive, because they impede my progress revising the first third of a novel. (They don’t keep me from doing my day job, of course. Nothing keeps me from doing my day job.) There are things I would rather do in the silence, such as plot this darned book better. Why can’t I ruminate about Leah’s decision to act upon her visions?
My ruminations might simply be a procrastination tactic, preventing me from tackling some pretty hard work. I know I have to move parts of the novel and rewrite other parts eventually, and I don’t want to. I haven’t figured out what the book is yet. Reflecting on my pettiness is easier work.
I need to do something new to move my mind to the doing work rather than ruminating. Maybe working with pen and paper for a while. Maybe red fountain pen. Perhaps going out to coffee. Anything but this ruminating.
Words Like Me 