Writan

It is with sweet and dreadful anticipation that I watch the month of April come closer and closer with its promises of daffodils and poetry.

I’ve participated in the online poetry-challenge #escapril on Instagram since it first began in 2019. Last year was not a good one for me, and I gave up and did not finish the challenge, which made me immensely disappointed with myself. My relationship with my writing has been an odd one this past year, even uncomfortable one could say, which has resulted in me reading more books than trying to write one. I’m trying something different this Escapril though, and I’m hoping to be able to execute this plan to my satisfaction (while reminding myself that it is totally OK if I fail — well, trying to remind myself of that, at least). Take a shot every time I tell you I’m trying.

Anyway, I think I’m happy with my blog now; the green and pink theme was lovely but in the end I settled for these latte-colors that you see now. Maybe this blog will help me find my way back to writing, writing the way I once did again. Not effortlessly perhaps, but at least more easily, bleedingly.

I look forward to April, despite the tinge of anxiety telling me I’ll never once more find that room in my mind, where I used to be able to disappear for days and just write and write and write — I’m sure I will find it though, because I’ve learned not to trust what silly pessimistic things my thoughts might tell me. Maybe Escapril 2023 will help me with getting back into that room, that writing-desk-with-dust-dancing-in-the-sunlight-window room hiding in my head. Or it will not. Either way, I’m going to have fun. And if I ever stumble upon writer’s block during this upcoming month, at least I’m determined to have a good time up until then.

“Hemingway once said that ‘there is nothing to writing, you just sit down at a typewriter and bleed.’ What Hemingway failed to mention is that bleeding is the easy part. To cut is what makes writing hard. Sitting down to write and hitting that first key or touching the tip of your pen to that blank sheet of paper - that’s the hard part. Once you start - once you spill that first bit of ink and let it bleed into the page, the rest takes care of itself. There’s nothing to it. You just sit there and bleed until it stops. It is not for this reason, but it’s still interesting and worth mentioning that the word ‘write’ comes from the Proto-Germanic word ‘writan,’ which literally meant to scratch, tear, or cut.” — Sean Norris