Renewal

It's spring. Time for spring cleaning. For me right now the thing that needs to be cleaned the most is my mind. I have been wallowing in depression and dreariness for months now, and I'm ready to stop.

I am still working on the Holly Lisle How to Think Sideways course. I'm way behind in the lessons, but I am going to keep moving forward. I think it's a good system, and I refuse to give up.

I've toyed with the idea of giving up, thought that maybe I wasn't meant to be a writer. I thought maybe if I was really meant to be a writer it would be easier to actually just sit down and write; if I was really a writer I'd just be doing it. So maybe I wasn't meant for it and should just stop trying, stop yearning and hoping, stop beginning again and again. But I have this quote in front of my from Christina Baldwin: "We do not choose a vision; we are not given a longing, unless we are also given the ability to fulfill it."

I can't walk away from it, even though I'm not really doing it right now. I can't stop thinking about writing. I can't stop thinking of story, of the people who live in my head, of things that I might want to put into my writing. I can't stop thinking of new stories, bits of dialogue, descriptions of places. I can't stop turning things I'm looking at into descriptions in my head, trying to figure out how I would write the scene to make it most vivid. I think this actually tells me everything I need to know. I can't stop. I can say that I'm going to stop, but I can't actually manage it. My brain won't stop sending the ideas and thoughts and compulsions.

So, how to turn ideas and thoughts and compulsions into a regular writing habit that will move me forward and get me to finish stories and create a real writing life? Not fully sure on that one yet. But I'll keep you posted. I'll probably be writing here more--I thought checking in with page or word counts and progress updates might be useful for me. The writing here will probably become more personal, more about what I'm doing with my stories rather than about writing in general. If anyone is still looking, I hope you'll like that ride.