Regarding Writing

 

I've had conversations with a friend who doesn't write anymore. At least not for now. And we kind of agreed that we both wrote laregly for escapism. Various traumas kept us from wanting to really be present for our lives. We went somewhere else for validation and safety.

She said something about living. Being fully present for our lives. Living and being invested in ourselves, rather than the escapist fantasies we'd fled to.

Living is, in my writing mentor's words, grist for the writer's mill.

My imagination will always dream and fantasize and spin tales. But I wonder if I'm in a transition. Is this lull, this frustrating 'dead' spot, actually a threshold? A period of growth, rather than stagnation?

Am I now going into a place where my experiences can inform my writing? It's the richness of experiences that really fuels good writing.

In my youth, I think my writing was the explosive force of my angst, burning holes through me. I think it was escapsim, too. I didn't want the mundane. I wanted magic. But it was also my self expression, trying to find its voice--to scream itself into existence.

Re-reading my space opera for the audiobook really shows the loneliness and the struggle that I was having at the time. The novel is an exploration of alienation. I didn't fully understand or accept why I felt that way--but I did, and intensely. writing fiction was the only real way I had to even try to process something I was desperately trying to hide from myself.

Now, I've faced the trauma that is growing up queer and in the closet. Has my use for writing run out? Now that I no longer need lies?

I don't think so. I am still drawn to stories. To creation.

I think I just need to figure out my new relationship with it. How do I use it for love and pure joy instead of survival?

Maybe I just need more life. To live more. And the stories will write themselves again. 

They say pain makes art. Suffering is the artist's lot. Without which, truly good art can't exist.

I have been the most inspired by agony. There is a beauty in suffering. But I don't think that's all. There's still pain stored in these bones, enough to draw upon for sweet magic making. But I grow weary of such masochistic composition. I can draw upon that power later. Let me heal now.

I must let me. This is but the quiet valley after the war, and great abundance lurks ahead. More pain, mayhap. More storm. But life and art, too.

And at least I understand that now.