WordFlix

Anticipation

I woke up this morning in the luxurious knowledge that today is Sunday, a day of no work, and my pleasure was only slightly dimmed by the silent whisper in my head that reminded me that tomorrow will be a whole 'nuther ballgame ("Hush! Let Monday take care of itself!").

My day began with my husband, who was already up, bringing me one of our four warm, sleepy cats to cuddle for another half-hour before I woke properly.  She and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves: I love her and she loves me for loving her.  It's as simple, as amazing, and as wonderful as that. 

From cats to clothing (sweats and a t-shirt), coffee (one of life's greatest, simplest pleasures), and computer (I love technology and wish my affection were matched by my knowledge of it, which is basic at best): that's my usual morning routine, whether or not it's a workday.  Although on days I don't work, my progress from bedroom to study tends to be leisurely.

Today was no different:  as I sipped my first cup of caffeine, I fired up my computer, perused the news on my home page, checked the blogs I follow through Bloglines, peeked in on a social networking forum, posted to a discussion board related to weight loss, and clicked through my daily charity donation sites.  The usual.

And yet in the back of my mind (or the pit of my stomach) is a little niggling sense of apprehension that's just not going away.  It's there, through and underneath the usual, reassuring tasks and the rich taste of coffee on my tongue.  For you see, tomorrow I begin my summer work schedule.  Tomorrow I sit down to my computer in earnest. 

Tomorrow I Start Writing.

That's how I think of it, in all the endeavor's daunting-ness. (The first letter of each noun or verb must be capitalized, given its due.  And of course, that simply makes its daunting-ness that much daunting-er.  Ahem.  More daunting.)  Language begins to elude my grasp, break down, as the prospect of wordsmithing it draws near.

And yet, why should it?  Perhaps I can outwit my trickster brain, my somersaulting stomach, by writing now, so that when I begin tomorrow I will actually have already begun here, today.  I will have already started writing -- in an absence of capital letters -- where words are like faceted jewels, waiting to be strung, rather than hard slabs of granite, silently daring me to prise and hew them from their home on a forbidding mountain.

So.

Today I started writing.

Logophilia

 A love of (passion for, obsession with) words.  If Freud didn't write about that, he should have because I think that's what many of us suffer from and for.

The quest for the perfect word, or combination of words -- in print, in speech, in everyday life. 

When we seem to find such a thing, a phrase will shimmer, resonate.  When we don't, we feel blocked, stopped up, eradicated.

When I was in high school there were two words I loved in succession.  First there was "zephyr" (for the sheer sound and look of it, entirely apart from its meanings), and then came "halcyon" (ditto). A word fetishist, that's me: I have yet to discover words in English that sound lovelier to me.

Beginnings

I just tested this blog's domain name and found that it was up and running (I highly recommend GoDaddy.com: inexpensive, scalable, good customer service) so that's kind of exciting. To me, at any rate.

It does occur to me that, given its URL, I should have titled the blog "WordFlix" or chosen a domain name containing "punctum." Well, but one day I may want to use the domain name for something else or something more, and "punctum" has narrower connotations than "wordflix." The latter is a word I obviously made up, and the former is much older in origin, albeit with more recent literary and cultural connotations that are specific to this blog, at least as I imagine it.

So now.  That's how I've arrived at this point of departure.

Setting forth

 I lasted not even six months.  From mid-January to ... not even the end of May. 

That's how long I've gone without writing -- which is to say, without writing for my own pleasure (god knows I've written reams of things in the past five months, but all in the line of work or duty).  Of course, when I say that I write here for my own pleasure, it must be admitted that what adds to that pleasure is the awareness that I shape my prose knowing it could be read by eyes other than mine.

It's not so much that I enjoy being read (here, anyway).  It's more that my awareness of the possibility of readers, actual or imagined, provides me with an implicit discipline and potential structure, however loose, that I would otherwise lack. It's in working within that zone that I shape my words and set them down.  When I write with a full guarantee of total privacy, my words spill onto the page or the screen any which way.  That's good for one kind of self-discovery -- and this space is good for other kinds.

So I begin this voyage, not knowing where it will take me or who takes it with me.  As with a journey of any length, it will have its highs and lows. It will be what it is.