Thoughts on Writing Right Now

I’m reading the book BigMagic by Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame. I picked it up a couple weeks ago when I stopped by Barnes and Noble to take an hour to write and read magazines and otherwise sit and spend some time with myself, as I’m known to do in that store and many a library.

The book centers around creativity and its importance in our lives. I’m only about halfway through but it talks a lot about fear and about how you really have to just choose and then enjoy the things that feed that creative part of yourself.

I also happened to listen to the first episode of the accompanying podcast while I took the baby for a walk the other day. A few things about it in particular hit home, namely that procrastination is just fear, which is so so true for me.

But anyway, creativity and creative outlets and what works for me and what I want it all to look like have been on my mind lately.

I may not blog here super regularly at the moment, but I’ve been blogging, in some form or another for years. (Actually 2001 to be exact, if we’re counting my Live Journal with the awful black background and white type.) As a writer, the idea of expressing myself in a place where people can read what I’m thinking and feeling, in a way that helps me process what I’m thinking and feeling, is gold. I love it, truly. I’ve written about personal stuff, but also about other things, like local jewelry and being Italian and episodes of Lost.

People talk so much about how blogging has changed and that it isn’t what it used to be and it’s dead and what’s the point and on and on. And that’s probably true. But here’s what I know is also true, for me: I still value good, true writing above all else. The kind where the person talks about what they’re feeling or seeing or whatever small, seemingly mundane thing they’re going through. 

Maybe that small, mundane thing isn’t important to anyone else. But maybe it is. Maybe it’s exactly what someone needs to read on a Monday morning after a Sunday night breakdown because it’s hard to be all the kinds of people you want to be at the same time.

I can admittedly say that I’ve wanted to come back to this space, to writing regularly, for awhile. I’m needing and wanting an outlet right now—especially as I figure out this new season I’m in, with all the clichés that come along with it. But I’ve held back because I wonder: Is it too different? Am I too different? Am I stuck in 2009, when I could post quotes and inspirational photos, back when there was no Pinterest or Instagram?

And then I think: Who cares? Honestly, though, who cares? What if I just put out there exactly what I want to put out there, and then see what happens? We carve out and create the spaces that surround us. Without the shoulds and the have tos. That, I’ve realized, is as true in life as it is in writing.

[photo via unsplash]