Wrote my first poem when I was around 14 or 15. For a couple of years, I’ve been writing poetry and short stories. Then, for a good long while, I stopped. Some 10+ years later, I found a career writing.
I don’t want to write like I was at 14. I just badly want to write like I was at 14.
Those first writings, with maybe half a handful of notable exceptions, were horrible. I had no sense of anything, just took pen to paper and wrote. Nowadays, I know better.
And that’s the problem: I know.
I’m at an awkward phase where I know too much to be instinctive, but not enough for it to be instinctive.
I cherish my skill at writing, but struggle with reconciling it with my talent for writing. It’s especially been hard in the past few months, as I picked up photography and still enjoying the innocence of not knowing what I’m doing, just going by intuition rather than knowledge.
I feel like that the weight of knowing how to edit, knowing what it needs to be eventually, is crushing my writing into nothingness. I know what I want my writing to be. I know how to get there. And all that knowledge is getting in the way of writing.
I miss writing freely. I miss not caring about first drafts. I terribly, terribly miss not knowing. I miss the trust I had in myself. I miss, terribly miss having the courage to spend time on writing without the pressure of publishing.
As an adult, I have a lot less time for everything. And a lot more concerns for my future, a lot more pressure to accomplish things. All those concerns and pressures suffocate my writing, get in the way of creating a foundation that would eventually dispel those very concerns and pressures.
No more.
Research is important. Knowledge is important. Getting better and getting things done are important. But nothing happens without a first draft. Nothing happens without allowing myself to fail into success.
I need to exchange the books and tools and options to just writing for myself first. I need to push the knowledge to the side so the stories can come out. Naked, raw, and horrible. But I can’t dress up, polish, and better ghosts. There need to be words on the paper before there can be anything else after.
I need to go back to my roots, and re-learn how to write so I can learn how to write better. I need to reconcile my knowledge and skill with my talent. The talent that I think I still have, but have no idea if it still exists I’ve been suffocating it so long.
rainy Sunday morn —
old yarns in sotto voce
whirl under the fog
Here’s to terrible writing, again!
