I’m dipping my toe into the writing pool.
Just a little.
This post is nothing more than a small step for a small writer on the celestial bridge between brain and page that us author-ly types attempt to traverse on occasion. It’s a rickety bridge I’ll say that much for it. Some seem to scoot across it with reckless abandon. Others tip toe, avoiding every crack or ridge. I came to a large hole in the bridge some time ago and have been sat looking forlornly across at the other side wondering “why me” in a pitiful tone, or occasionally searching for materials which might help me fix the gap. Maybe this is one of those times. A blog post counts as writing after all, so let’s say that I have laid a plank down and moved an inch today, and for today that is enough. In truth it may as well have been a plank stretching a million miles across for how hard it has been to get back on the writing wagon.
I have both loved and hated my small measure of success as a writer. I achieved more than I ever dared possible, but found myself open to such hateful judgement. That’s what happens when you show a piece of yourself to the human race at large, some love you, some hate you, I knew this, but I wasn’t really prepared for the level of vitriol that some of the “haters” seem to enjoy spewing from their keyboards. I had also presumed myself to have a far thicker skin than the one I actually wear. My real skin is paper-thin and my ego hates to admit it. But rather than fight against my nature, I have to try and work around it. Fear is a funny thing, being both fundamentally useful and at inconvenient times completely obstructive. Who has stopped me from writing? Only one person on the whole planet.
I have decided to stop focusing on the end. It is too far away, too abstract, and altogether too much work to conceive of at once. I can’t think about having written an entire book (even though I already have 6 of the things to my name). Today I CAN think about writing one blog post. And maybe even a few lines of a book.
I can.
I will.
It’s almost complete already. I’d go so far as to say perhaps two planks have been laid down… but I won’t step on the second yet. I don’t trust it. Or perhaps I don’t trust myself. Either way, I am a small writer, and a small toe dip is enough for today.
And this is it. Such as it is.