Haven’t been talking about writing much lately. That doesn’t mean I’m not doing it–I am writing, every day. The book in progress, which is still in the stages where I can’t talk about it yet, and essays and lots of emails to friends and family.
Which is what writing is all about. Showing up, opening up, letting it flow. So often, we can dramatize the whole thing to make ourselves the center of this wild, tossing ocean, and instead, we can just go to the computer and put our hands on the keys, or open a notebook and uncap a good pen, and start writing. Journals count. Blogs count. A good letter (even email, as long as it is a letter, not a note) counts. Pages you might use someday in some unyet discovered something count.
Writing is what keeps me sane. It’s both physical and mental. Grounding and inspiring. Easy and hard. Do you make writing hard for yourself? Is there some little something you could to do give yourself permission to let it flow?
Ditto! On the writing every day. Yeah, I’ve made it hard for myself in trying to decide what I’m writing instead of just writing it. And now I’m having fun. Is there room for a gonzo-style romance out there? We’ll see. In the meantime, I’ll just keep showing up. On y va!
I’m certain I make writing hard for myself. This undulating fabric of words, it stretches out before me like desert dunes and I wonder sometimes, can I cross that? Sometimes I think it’s impossible and yet I know all it takes is a handful of words strewn out across the page and then it will all start.
I hope there are a lot of responses to this question because I could use a kick in the pants.
I think the hardest thing for me is giving myself permission to fail, to write stinkily. And the other hardest thing is to forget about what other people think I should be doing and just write. Maybe that’s even harder. I can stand to stink. Stinkfests can be cleaned up, but I’ve got to balance the expectations of others against what is important to me. Writing keeps me sane too.
Maybe we just make it harder than it needs to be, maybe?
Gabrielle, a gonzo romance sounds like lots of fun to me.
Yvonne, yes, the permission to write badly. Or maybe “not judge” whether it is good or not. Just write anyway, bad or good.
It’s so easy to write letters and in my journal every day (thanks for counting those kinds of writing, Barbara!) but not easy to write my novel. Introspective writing flows out of me but the necessary crafting of every word, every nuance of my novel intimidates me. I am trying two new things though, which I’ll share here. One is to use colored felt pens to write it with. Isabel Allende says writing requires “fondness;” that it’s an activity which becomes tedious without pleasurable implementation. 🙂 (I paraphrased.) The other new idea is to write in a journal before or after I write, not a personal journal but written in the form of a letter to a respected friend who is also a writer. I started that a few days ago and it’s helped me stay focused, because it makes me accountable to her as well as to myself. She doesn’t know I’m doing it yet, since that will put pressure on me. I’d like to just give it to her when I’m finished. With flowers, and a thank you note. 🙂
Lara, great ideas. “Fondness.” I love that. It’s the emotion that swells up in me when I’m finally able to get to the work after many distractions.
And the idea of keeping the journal for a respected friend is fantastic! No pressure pressure.