freewriting: recommit.

Hey my friends. Can I tell you something true? I've been staring at this screen for 30 minutes and feeling more and more like smacking my head into it. My writing comes in waves but my habits really have died. I've lost hold of the rituals that used to keep my writing engine oiled up so that, when the time came, I had something to say here. I know that, more than anything, I need to start freewriting again. I know it's the thing I need because, at this exact moment, I'm thinking up excuses for why I can't freewrite tonight. What can I say? My brain is a weird person. I am perfectly capable of forming new habits, it just takes a bit of devotion.

In the meantime, I always have things to share:

I love this letter from Harper Lee about reading as a child.

I wrote up another review for The Lit Pub on Seth Fried's, The Great Frustration. Have a look over here: Don't let your reason get the best of you today.

You'll also find one of my tweets in the latest issue of Creative Nonfiction! That's pretty cool. You can order it over here (if you like).

I heard Langhorne Slim play at the Rock & Roll Hotel last night. Give him a big old listen. He's got a new album that's a rocking good time.

And I'll tell you what I'm doing this fine evening. I'm going to close this screen, make myself some toast, and freewrite for fifteen minutes. Just fifteen! It's nothing, I can do it. You hold me accountable.

just one.

I pass a pair of sunflowers each day on my walk home. The petals are still barely yellow, but the heavy heads hang low and sad. They've been planted on a bit of sloped yard, so they tower over me as I walk by. I look up into their faces and nod. They sway and droop a bit lower.

There's enough in the world to get you down, there's no doubt.

There are enough things to do that wading through and choosing sometimes seems an impossible task.

I get these bursts, wild wild bursts of excitement, moments of complete certainty that I am meant to be writing and I have so much to say that there isn't one moment to lose. The excitement holds me for a bit, then I get a little dizzy and overwhelmed, then I try to block it all out in my head and get things organized, and then I give up. Suddenly it's 10pm and I'm sitting on the couch and someone is asking me, Have you written anything? Most likely I am snarling back in self-defense and laziness.

It's some cousin of that despair I know well, the kind that looks all around at the world, sees so much suffering and need, and feels that nothing can be done about it all. The solution is always, must always be, to break it down into what I can manage. I have no choice. If I contemplate the great suffering of the world all at once, I'll never sleep at night.

It should apply also to writing. I need to remember to carve out the bit I can manage for now and let the rest be. I must remember that just because I'm not doing everything doesn't mean I'm doing nothing. It might be one word, one sentence, one person who connects and is motivated, inspired, renewed, understood, revealed, and so on. Just one is enough, isn't it? Just one.