You may or may not have noticed I did not write a blog post yesterday. I had posted for 11 straight days. WordPress let me know each day what my streak was. And I was so tempted to just write something (I am considering doing a ‘5 I Can’t Live Without’ with books and movies) to keep my streak alive…
But I didn’t.
The streak is over. WordPress’s automated response was quiet yesterday.
Which brings me to a deeper question, why do I write?
At the moment I am at The Blue Moon with my favorite writing drink, a Bizarre Orange Encounter. I am supposed to be working on my novel, but I wrote a poem for the weekly Battle Born poetry challenge. Which I think turned out awesome! And now, I’m writing this blog post as I took a few minutes to watch the traffic inside and outside the coffee shop and started to ponder what I was doing with my writing life.
Part of the tension was my goal of working on my novel but spending time writing a poem. It’s not a bad thing to write the poem, I had the idea and even the poetic form I thought would work bouncing around in my head. The morning has been productive (plus a #blog post to share).
But I will be 110 years old soon (my dad joke, I double my age). In 5th grade I wanted to be a writer. I have been writing ever since, sometimes just to handle the pain in my soul, sometimes to share ideas and help other writers, but mostly whatever the muse hits me with.
Not the most efficient way to build a following for my blog, to complete a novel, or even produce poetry that people read or care about.
To be honest, one of the darker reasons I write is to feel a sense of validation. To be seen. To feel that I am worth, worth something. My psychologist side knows and understands this (for those who don’t know, my first degree is in psychology and I was in grad school to become a psychologist before I totally switched gears).
Last night as I was finishing the dishes thinking about just throwing something up on to my blog to keep the streak alive I realized that I was just trying to get some recognition from a digital source. From a notification that would have a little badge, maybe with an arrow pointing up. The muse was not inspiring me, I was dealing with any of my emotions. I was just going to write because of that small hit of validation that would come because I kept my posting streak alive.
I will always have that tension of trying to achieve my writing goals, poetry, blogs, short stories, and a few novels. The muse is an infuriating source of inspiration, but I love the rush of her touch. And I am working on the aspect of my worth connected with my writing. But maybe it’s part of the writing life when you try to write from your heart, even if it is dealing with the cracks and bruises of life. My writing is me.
Just sharing a song that I’ve been connecting with lately…
It is all Connected 