An Edit

I've recently subscribed to Gwen Bell's mailing list.  A few days ago Gwen asked of her own writing, 'Would it still be the work if nobody read it?'  Although I'm not sure I can answer Gwen's question, I'd like to explore some ideas I've had about blogging.  

Over the past weeks I've noticed a change in the way I relate to what I write here.  At first I worried myself into a tizz over what you, my reader, might think, and I felt that it would only take a clumsy sentence or an unoriginal thought (I have many of both) to destroy my career.  I still think that, some of the time.

However, I find that although I still press 'Publish' with my eyes screwed tight and my fingers crossed, I'm learning to think of this space as a part of my writing practice.  It may be public writing, but it's still practice.  Rebecca told me recently that she was blogging again partly in order to face her fear of being read.  I too am doing this to practice till I'm no longer so scared, to keep going until the words come out easily, as though you weren't there.

Today's picture comes from some notes I made a while ago for a book I'm no longer going to write.  I made it to try and understand the vision of Enoch.  An attempted map of heaven and hell seemed an appropriate illustration for today's post, which was originally meant to be about my weekend, but instead has turned out to to be an attempt to articulate thoughts that I have difficulty expressing, that is, to continue practicing.