#1: Blah Blah Blah Blog!

I’ve written about so many things at this point in my journey as a writer, but seldom have I ever written about the actual act of writing itself. I have poems under my belt that were used as platforms to jump off of when I was trying to chip away at the walls built of writing blocks, but they weren’t really ventures into the actual process of creating itself. So, here’s my first attempt at writing about…wait for it…writing.

Sitting down, and actually putting your fingers to keys, or the tip of a pen or pencil to paper, is always going to be the most important part of the process. None of your writing is so special that it needs more time before it’s ready for the page. If you feel that way, then as Ginsberg so aptly put it, “Kill your darlings.” Otherwise, those very same words, the ones that are so special, the words that need everything to be in the right place, the moon to be at the right height, and the feeling of Spring to be on the wind. Those words will keep you from ever finishing a writing project. They’ll be your excuse for never accomplishing anything. Those fragile inspirations will break under the weight of your expectations, because you were so afraid that they would be too frail outside of the perfect climate for creation. You’re going to write poems that don’t work. You’re going to write stories that don’t ever quite tell the tale you want them to. Your words will sometimes fail you, but that’s a good thing. You’re human. We fail at times. You need to have the failures to truly grow your voice. It’s a rite of passage as a writer. And like all rites of passage, it can often suck when you’re going through it.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. You can learn to delight in the words that don’t work. You can laugh at them, which is just another healthy way of laughing at yourself, and then take them apart and start over. Your writing, much like energy itself, has the ability to never truly be destroyed. All of it can take new shapes. Failed works can become fecund fields from which new work can grow. As I write this I’m reading it over and over, and thinking to myself, “Is this any good?” The answer is, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I sat down and wrote it. Next time I can write something better, or worse, or somewhere in-between. I’ve done the important part. I’ve sat down and written something. I’ve started the process of becoming something more than I was. Here goes…