Taking advice (my own, and others)

So I left the iPod at home on my run today. I'd already cleared the R3-30 podcasts (hit-and-miss for running beats) and took on some DJ Miles tracks for the road, but then I remembered ... from previous posts (not to mention weird chest rashes from electronic cables) ... that my mind sort of shuts down when I listen to music on the go.

And I really do want to get back to you, blog. (Only upon returning did I realize I'd been gone for a month! Egad!)

In any case, after I started trotting down Lyon Street, eyes focused on the semi-plowed sidewalk and cheeks puckered against the wind, I realized I I would have to take it slow on this run. Winter running is an entirely different sport, involving a testy game of layering (one which I'm losing via over-bundling these days) and a final product that, in my case, looks nothing more graceful than a power-suited lade rushing the morning bus in heels and a briefcase.

Take it slow, I told myself. You're out here, you're taking a stab at it. Slow -- baby steps. (Though in this weather babies would be wheeled around or cozily strapped to mom's chest).

And then, the aha moment. I can take it slow with the blog. I can write in spurts, I can leave it alone for a week of heavy deadlines (or a time when I doubt it's role in helping be get a paying gig).

So I took my own advice a couple times here. But I also want to get better at this, I want to improve and I DO believe it can help me get paying gigs.

So, in the bleak mid-winter, when times are tough all over and neither running nor writing looks appealing, I'm going to read more blogs, research and link, and take baby steps to a new online life.

Just Write!

...this was the instruction of one of my first writing teachers Mr. Krisak.
That, and 'Let's Talk' were often scrawled across pages of my required journal entries, poems, short stories, and even the final 'Magnum Opus.'
Krisak introduced me to a lot of aspects of writing, like the notion that you'll never be absolutely satisfied with a piece and the idea that crap should not be tolerated.
So I often see those words in my minds' eye, when I'm washing the floors and am struck with a story, or find myself gazing out my front window, wondering what to blog about.
But lately, those two words have taken on a new meaning.
What if I 'Just Wrote?'
As in, didn't wash the floors or balance other people's interests into life's equations? What if I gave up the idea of physical fitness and social ties and...just write my days away??
I've always loved it. I can't imagine my life without it. And yet, I've never really let it take over my world, let myself become soley a vehicle for words, with no sister or mother, boyfriend or brother calling me out to play.

Could I take over the world if the words took over me??

I'm thinking of it today because I had a bizarre, disturbing dream last night. Really just a vision: I came up with a kick-ass, brilliant idea for a fiction novel.
Now, I dream often, and in vivid colour, action, and depth. The other day, after describing a literal roller-coaster of a dream to a friend, I tried to comfort him by saying that perhaps I dream so much because my life is sort of lame.
(This isn't true, but I sometimes feel bad about being happy. When 'no complaints' really means no complaints, and I can only say 'happy, health and fun,' I feel the need to recoil into apology mode. Weird?)
In any case, I told my buddy that perhaps my brain compensates, 'tops up' if you will, if the there's a lack of creative stimuli in my life...through dreams.

Now I'm scared. Do I need to be writing fiction?