I was worried. I was always the type to jump from one activity to another (crocheting, latch hook, pottery, those keychain things that you can make with the plastic strings) but writing was always the thing that stuck. I wanted to make a career out of it and here I was making all of the excuses to not do something that I loved.
So I tried to think. What was different now than when I was writing tons years ago? And what did I remember?
I remembered sitting at our clunky home computer with my sister and typing out a story together. Printing off chapters of a story to take to school for a friend who took an interest in it. Writing an essay about a renegade pen (long story) and embarrassingly sitting through my teacher reading it to the entire highschool. Doing a class project in college that resulted in a hard back copy of my own and my parents buying extra for assorted aunts and uncles.
I remember sharing.
I realized that I haven't even talked to anyone about writing lately. It stopped being a part of my life and more like a thing that was happening to me. That doesn't make sense but I'm not sure how else to word it. My point is that I'd write things and then they would just sit there.
I'm not saying that I have to have an audience for everything I write. I'm not saying I must be published and paid and applauded for this to be worth it. I think if I could entertain one friend, one family member, one person at all if even for a moment, it would give it so much more life than if I wasted it by letting it sit in a computer file or notebook.
I was writing yesterday and was loving it. After weeks I was finally going to have something to share with my writers group who seem to honestly enjoy what I'm working on and that makes me happy. It's ok to keep some things to yourself. Some things are meant for that. But you can't put a candle in jar and expect it to keep it to keep burning. It needs some air.
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