Hullo Sweeties….

Today on Facebook a friend and fellow writer, Bethani Jade, tagged me in a post inviting me to share in a “self-love” writing challenge that she is doing.  It brought up all sorts of….nasty sticky goo for me around my writing practice.

methinks she is from a video game called World of Goo

One of the things that ZOOOOOOOMED to forefront of my reptilian brain was … this blog.  This silent, looming, blank day by blank day thing that I created and am now… neglecting.

Before I lose my nerve.

And before my over-active perfectionist gene kicks in and makes me write a whole DIFFERENT blog post… I’m just gonna copy in my reply to her…

She wrote about how she loves her OWN way with words.  I especially love this …

I care more about writing bold, fluid, active lines than for form or structure. The lyrical quality of words is also far more important to me then the exact definition. I pay attention to how the tongue wraps around, and how the mind rests on each syllable.

She invited me and the fabulous Carla Atherton to join her in the self-love writing challenge.

And I responded….

Hey Bethani – oh how this makes me smile.  Thank you for the invitation (and the challenge of it). 

…

…

Wow… As I sit here, my stomach knots and I begin to sweat. 

I am not feeling the self-love on the writing front these days at all at all…

I ask myself– why?  I continue to write, each morning in my Scribble book and I am playing with a reVision on a story I wrote last year that I quite love.  This is true—yes? 

Yes this = true.

But the very thought of …. expressing self-love around my writing brings to my front brain all the writing I am NOT DOING or feel like I have FAILED at — the blog that runs silent, the novel that refuses to be written….. ouch ouch ouch. 

I stop, take a breath and… Offer kindness to my sore writer self.  And I see something.  It is small, but it is alive.

The best I can come to, today, is that I continue to… Begin Again. 

Every time I … lose my way, get lost in the weeds, I allow the piece(s) to rest and myself to rest (ha ha) and then… I begin again.

I blow across the ember and re-kindle the fire.

Sending a big wave of love and gratitude your way.  May tasty words continue to thrill you.

Go easy ~p

Yep that is what I wrote and so …

I spent some time today working on that story and…

Here I am, beginning again with this blog thing.

And for today, this is ENOUGH.

You can find some of Bethani’s wonderful words over @ https://bethanijade.wordpress.com and on her site @ https://bethani-jade.squarespace.com

And you can find Carla Atherton doing all kinds of wonderful work over at http://lotushealthproject.com

On we go ~p