On Writing
Consistency converts desire
Last night I wrote and cried while my dogs watched. Rewriting our own traumatic events is hard but if it wasn’t hard it wouldn’t generate power. Revisiting my moments, feeling them again, stepping back into the folded fabric from that period of my life gives me agency over my past. So I sit in emotions like a hot bath. Observe them objectively and without judgment. Then let them go.
I learn to feel them but not be controlled by them. Like stepping through streaming beams of morning light. Anger is easy because it feels safe. But most of the time there is an emotion beneath the anger. Readers want truth. The more you understand yourself the more you’ll connect to your readers. Whatever you give, make sure it’s honest.
Like I’d returned from war, I hit publish, sorely exhausted, hair a mess, drained from writing after a long day at work. Sat in my office chair thinking, God, I love this. Finding words, putting them together. Connecting outs with ins, going deep into the well to fetch more when there’s nothing left. It’s work to find more. But it’s worthwhile work. There is no work more worthwhile to me than assembling words like ships to send to faraway lands. There is no greater love, for me, than the craft of writing.
I wonder sometimes if maybe I was meant to love words more than people because I’m…
