I had big plans for what would become this post. Multiple different big plans, in fact. And I didn’t even feel like I’d gone looking for them or digging to think of them! They simply came to me when I was idly thinking, or trying to make sense of something about my writing inside my own head. I had things I wanted to say and I was looking forward to talking about!
. . .and then March came through in earnest, and I wound up juggling far too many things that needed doing right now and – along with everything else I wanted to work on creatively – I simply didn’t have time. Or energy. Or anything left.
So instead, today I’ll share a page from my ‘diary’, because I am simply too wrung out and worn through to be witty or wise (or to play at them, at least).
When my mind is weighed down and filled with ‘junk’, I must create to save myself.
As I’ve talked about before, writing is a component of mental health for me – a deeply important one. Not only do I seem to process everything I go through or feel by way of my writing (whether as near-direct inspiration or so twisted even I don’t know how the one connects to the other) but I honestly feel horrendous when I don’t ‘have time to write’.
I do write every day (even when I don’t quite feel like it to begin with), which works beautifully for me although I don’t think it is universally applicable advice to do so. (I sometimes suggest other writers give it a try, because you never know, but no one method suits everyone; even more true of creative pursuits.) That terrible feeling I get, however, is not guilt for not making time to fulfil a goal. Continue reading →