Tuesday, December 4, 2012

#AmWriting #AmNotWriting

Hello again dear reader

It has been some time since I have put anything in this category of my website, and the way things are going, it will be quite sometime before I manage to post anything worthwhile. You see, I am in a place where I haven't been for a while, and it is scaring me a little. And so, here I am. Writing. Call it an exorcism of writers block, call it a kick in the ass of creativity, call it whatever you will. I am writing. And I will take the spanner out of the works, and get to a happy place again. Come along, dear reader. Come with me as I write my way down the first leg of this journey.

If you've read my stuff going way back, you will know that I have been in a similiar place before. Do you remember the start of 'My Journal'? Yep, it was started for the sole purpose of writing every day. And it worked! I was doing a lot of writing, the words flowed into poetry, into some stories I was working on...I felt really good about it.

So what happened? Why am I now a little bit scared? After all, I have declared my love for the written word. I have posted many poems on various websites (including this one) to varying degrees of success. I have had two of my poems published in The Rusty Nail magazine (http://www.rustynailmag.com), and a third is scheduled to be in print in the new year some time. I have had 4 poems rejected by another magazine, and 2 submissions simply not acknowledged by a magazine. There is some experience there that puts me ( in my most humble opinion) on the same stage as other writers. And these experiences have all been positive, even the rejections. It's a part of writing that I can deal with. My question was 'What happened?'.

The answer is simple: I don't know. Or, if I am perfectly honest with you, the answer should be: I know, but I don't want to admit it. And so, dear reader, here's the hard part. Fixing it. It's broken and it needs repair. A firmware upgrade is needed, because I found some bugs in the old code (you techies will understand that). There are a few things that need fixing, and the main one is attitude. I think I became complacent. After all, I was writing! And I expected too much. I expected that the creativity would always be there, that I could write with little prompting. I was very very wrong. Maybe this period of time is good for me...it is giving my head a shake that I really needed. It's a good wake up call.

The second thing that went south on my was my effort. I was only writing when I thought I had something to write. Someone I follow on Twitter (@kseniaanske) gave the advice today to write. Her tweet read as follows: 'WRITE. Every day, write. And the lid held over your well will fly off. And the stories will flow.' And it is so true, and it really struck me. And that means that I will once again start writing in the 'My Journal' section of my site...100 words per day. If I don't write, I won't write. I had forgotten that, so thank you @ksensiaanske.

And there we have it, dear reader. The first step on my journey. This step could take a while, but I will be back. I will produce poetry again, I will add to the story of Lionel Aber, and I will write. I will be able to use again the hashtag #AmWriting. Thank you for your patience.

FF

3 comments:

  1. Writer’s block is a terrible thing. Making it a goal to write a bit every day helps, but sometimes fear still paralyzes you. I blogged about my struggles with writer’s block once before, here http://harmamaesmit.com/2011/06/09/does-writers-block-exist/

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  2. Ksenia Anske (@kseniaanske)March 1, 2013 at 7:03 PM

    Sure thing, and thanks so much for the mention!

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  3. I haven’t really written anything in ages, so I totally appreciate the @ksensiaanske quote. Great motivation. Lol, that, and I swear that one of my characters walked onto the bus I was on this evening. Just the sort of kick I needed to get started again.

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