Unwritings?
Is this even a real word? The little red dotted lines beneath it confirm my assumption that it probably isn't. Rather than finding a new word that is correct, I appreciate its imperfection.That is precisely part of the practice. This blog is an invitation to move through my difficulty with writing through a collection of non-writings. My first one called unwritings. The new action of getting my words unstuck and out of me.
What does it look like to only write for myself? This is a question that is pulsing through my mind as my fingers clack across the luminous keyboard, bringing my thought through to the screen. My relationship with writing is fraught. I wish I could tell you why or pin point that exact moment in my childhood that has contributed towards decades of resistance and discomfort. Sometimes writing feels like my enemy.
Is writing my enemy or am I giving the action a label that it does not deserve? The feeling I get when I write in inadequate. Not a fast enough typer, not a neat enough hand writer and ugh! those hand cramps! My thoughts from mind to my hand do not transfer in the same way my words to mouth flow. There is an immediacy to my words, but with writing there is always a real time opportunity to critique, question, and erase what has been said. Instead, my processing slows down and I become drained from processing between the two parts of myself,
I think this is what stage fright of writing is.
I wish writing felt like the instinctual swim moment that would happen if I fall into water. I wish that the moment there was a pencil and paper or hands to a keyboard, a natural flow -- a written stream of consciousness -- would pour out of me. Instead, the panic sets in and my over thinking brain turns the perfectionist (is this the mechanism at play?) knob on. So here I am attempting to work with this side of myself through a creative and free flow practice of my thoughts. There is no assignment, no due date, no page limit. All topics and themes are on the table.
Write what is on my mind. However short or long it wants to be, let it be.
