I’m tired and I don’t really feel like writing just now. Let me give it a go anyway; a good sense of work discipline is an important thing to work on as well.

Freewriting is both freeing my writing and causing me to repeat myself too often. This, of course, is something that can be fixed in the process of revision. Because I am freewriting I shouldn’t worry too much about repetition, or my over-use of cliches, or my overuse of any kind of language or structure - just write.

In fact, cliches and idiomatic language can be kind of fun, I must say. I like to wallow in the cliches and poke fun at them, but I can’t seem to keep them out of my finished writing. Not that any of the writing in this blog is finished - it very purposefully is not. In any event (a cliched phrase I use too often), I need to stop thinking about it.

I need to just write. Let me go on for a while without stopping. In the first three paragraphs I stopped a few times to have a sip of beer or to read what I have already written. For now, though, I am going to continue writing.

I need to get more exercise. I need to go to the gym I pay a membership for. I also need to walk/run around here. I can start by walking up the street and around the STCC campus. That long hill going up will be a great workout. Then, down the hill I can run a bit. It’s all a matter of managing my lack of fitness. I hate going to the gym when it is crowded, as it always is at the West Springfield gym. I should try out the one here in Springfield, or I should go back to the one in Chicopee. I liked the Chicopee gym - nice and sparsely populated. Lifting weights is a solitary thing for me. I don’t want a bunch of meatheads hanging around while I struggle with light weights. It’s an ego thing, I suppose, but I do like to be on my own when I lift weights.

Writing is also a solitary endeavor (that’s a no shit statement if I ever heard one). I like it when my mind quiets down and the words start to flow, not worrying about what will come next because, lo and behold, it almost always comes. But it does take some quiet to maintain the focus so that I can write. I remember reading an interview once with Nadine Gordimer in which she talked about her need for solitude in order to write. I also like Margaret Atwood’s contention that she writes as if nobody will ever read what she has written (I have mentioned this concept several times throughout this blog). But this is what I am doing while writing this blog - I write as if nobody, including me, will ever read it. Of course, I will read it at some point in order to revise and see if there is some larger project lurking in there. But for now, just hit it and quit it.

Let me leave it here for now, at c.550 words.