Junk Drawer

Martin visited us this past weekend and I missed a few days of writing. I have to tell myself it’s not worth abandoning the entire idea.

I don’t have much momentum yet.

It’s hard for me to write freely when I know it might be read. If someone else is going to see it, I want there to be structure, flow, a point.

But if this experiment is going to work, I need to loosen up. Allow this space to be messy. In my journal, I love giving into the exercise of following my thoughts and seeing where they take me. I find many delightful things. It feels risky to do that more publicly. It won’t be polished. It won’t be fully formed. It might be boring.

I think about the reader’s experience rather than the writing process. Even though it is just me right now! Hi, me. How has your reading experience been?

I need practice publishing in a range of states of “readiness” to push through the preoccupation with a perfectly curated portfolio. This is a sketchbook.

I want to be able to play, test ideas, experiment. So I can feel my writing growing, changing, stretching into something I can’t yet anticipate.

I yearn for creative practice more deeply and urgently than I have for a long time. Only I can make that space for myself. Only I can fill it.