A few pages, from the days I hate writing

I'm in writing rut, lately. So I want to share some notes, musings, and morning pages written over the past few weeks. Including the good, the bad, and the uncertainty. Enjoy.

The Good

August 31, 2023

What inspires me to write? That’s often the question. What warrants my words? Is it the sensational or sullen? The simple or refined? I wonder if it’s not just the heaviness of my heart that warrants writing. Nor is it the brainchild of inspiration and epiphany. The words I enjoy looking back on most are simply stories. They don’t have to be critical, or emotional, or even momentous. They just need to be told. And I wish to be a more faithful Teller. 

See, sometimes I’m really impressed with the words I string together. Like those, up above. They came out so easily, and I think “Shoot, which 19th century poet embodied me for the 2.3 seconds it took to write that out?” It’s a mystery to me.

Then I write something cheesy or elementary and altogether insufferable, and I think “A Ha! I knew it! I wasn’t a good or great writer after all!”

I wonder if every creative person endures this process. I tend to write a lot about writing, but I wonder if it’s just the kick starter I need to allow myself to embrace a resistance I feel, wanting to write, but not write.

Though, there’s something particularly exciting about the mystery of creativity. Something alive in me, I hadn’t yet known existed.

I tend to discount myself from calling current company “creative.” I think it’s because I don’t think in an imaginative way (I mean, I really can’t summon the image of an apple) so I tend to not live in the likes of fantasy or world building ventures.

So I decide I’m not creative. Yet, I’m fascinated with words. And when words, like these, find themselves on the page.

Where did they come from? Why them, and not others?

They weren’t in my mind before. Or perhaps they were, and I had to clear out some smokiness and mirrors to get around my thinking to find that one, clear thought amidst the chaos and clownery and clamor.

I love searching for words, because often I can find them. It’s like a puzzle I can solve, or a job I can master. I love savoring the finalized sentiment, seeing that final story worth sharing. I love finding the palace on paper to describe what that thing is I’m sensing, feeling, or saying. It’s amazing it comes together in the way it does.

How funny, the human imagination. Mine, unable to conjure anything other than pairings of words; yours, maybe able to create worlds I can only begin to calculate with pen and paper. 

Okay, see what I mean? That right there. Which twentieth century, alcoholic writer possessed me to write some swooping shit like that?

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The Bad

August 16, 2023

Writing, on nights like tonight, is like cutting yourself open voluntarily. Not in a horrific way, but not in a fully harmless way either. It’s like deciding two minutes in that, yeah, you’re going to delve into the grief of your grandmother’s death with the absolute most gut wrenching words you can string together. And then you set that down once you’ve written it, because you’ve decided you want ice cream now. And up you go.  

It’s a weird ordeal. A strange whiplash. In theory, it’s a cool and artsy existence, but on another plane, it’s voluntarily ripping your heart out to make something sing for the sake of the page.

Writing is like choosing to pluck out your inmost being – your thoughts, your prayers, your unsavory ugliness. It’s all the things you wish to gossip about and the wisdom you wish you had. It’s the worries that come from the depth of your soul and the hope that prevails among it, if at all. It’s your inmost secrets willing to find the page, betting you’ll be okay if someone finds it and sees it, and hoping you won’t be ruined like the privacy of the poets that came before you.

I’m no writer, I so often say. Well, I do, because I have to market myself somehow.

But deep down, I have a hard time believing it. Is my writing really good? Is it art? Is it true, and tried, and telling? It’s hard, most days, to see it. It’s even harder to believe it. To convince your heart to be cut open again, enough that the page of blotched blood and bruises is hallowed enough to be read – even revered – by your colleagues, friends, and your peers. 

Why is this so hard? I have to convince myself over and over again. Why try? Why train? Why choose to do this? Why open myself up to these tears if they come anyways? Why state truth if no one hears what I say? Why convince myself that these words are powerful, or true, or beautiful, or good, if I’m simply just trying my best? 

Does anyone want the true version on the paper? Or do these tears do me no good?

I suppose on nights like these, I still have yet to tell. 

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The Uncertainty

August 24, 2023

The thing about writing is that I want it to be meaningful. The most “out of the park” pieces I write are the ones someone comes to me later, telling me how much the words and the writing meant to them. How beautiful it was, or how it shaped their thinking on XY&Z. I want my work to be meaningful. I suppose I still have that manic “change the world” energy in me, screaming and panicking to write something out.

But maybe, like Amy said, the point is to be a poet, not a preacher. Maybe words aren’t meant to have “meaning” all the time. Perhaps they just want to be muttered.

Preaching is for getting a point across, I believe. For teaching. For telling. It’s a space where it’s important to be expository, and bright, and clear with what I say. So if that’s the case, maybe artwork – writing, rather – is not the absence of that, yet still speaks to another goal. Maybe writing is for giving space to my own thoughts. A playground, of sorts. Maybe it’s a map, for my own eyes. Space for my own style. Tapestry for my own thoughts and threads to pull.

Yet I’ve always been aware of the ‘other’ pair of eyes on me. There will always be people publicly reading and seeing, dissecting and ingesting my work. It’s the nature of creating, I think. Unless you’re off the grid in Alaska, which come to think of it, sounds a pretty great, too.

I guess I’m wondering if writing is a craft or a responsibility. Is it my job to create something of beauty, or to say something with hutzpah? I always predicted it was the latter, but if words (and my ability to write them) are truly a gift, is there any label of responsibility? Any silver string attached?

Is art a gift to use? And a way to worship? Am I simply meant to write? And to love? To create, and to play? That’s foreign to me, as far as writing goes. Yet it staggers me in the best of sense.

Still, the words I write will continue to have weight. Whether I choose it or not, the weight of my words will still matter. They will still make ripples. They will have impact. Is that not the weight of living? Is it not the cross I’m bearing?

Or perhaps it’s all meant to be enjoyed, as all good gifts are.

I don’t know. 

I wish I did. Maybe it’s the pure exploration of it all. Our writing reflects our learning, and our learning, our living. If we weren’t made to be perfect, perhaps we were simply meant to be human. And perhaps the words we mutter help us do just that.

Photo by Julia Joppien on Unsplash