I won't tell you where I've been. I won't drone on and on about our busy Spring or Summer, the details of road trips and getting caught in the rain while camping, of family time and birthdays, scraped knees and bruised elbows. This space has never really been a "hey, this is what I'm up to" catch all. This has been a place for me to throw some thoughts into the ether. To connect. To write.
Times have changed so much over the last few years in terms of the blogging world. I've not shied away from the conversations about how personal, narrative blogging {that's not even the term I'm looking for... it's eluding me...} is pretty much dead. But is it? I still follow several blogs, but it's so much easier to comment on a Facebook post or an Instagram photo.
And as the kids get older I'm wondering how much of their stories I can share. How much of our stories, the ones that belong to them as well as me. I don't have an answer.
There's lots that I don't have answers to. But the thing that I do know is that I'm in a writing slump. Not a terrible one, but enough of one for me to lift my hands up in the air and say I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm working on a novel that sprouted out of last years NaNoWriMo. The plot is now very different, and the writing is slow going and it feels good when I'm in it, but I easily fall out of it, and my footing is hardly rooted. I mentioned to Lucas the other night that I don't know how to move forward, I don't want to spend time on those things that move the story along. "Plot points?" he said. I nodded sheepishly into my glass of water. "Yup, those things." I couldn't remember the term, or even if it was the one I was actually looking for.
My brain is fried, and at times I feel like I'm hardly writing. I'm hardly qualified to do this. Hardly know anything. I will tell you that I went to hear Elizabeth Gilbert speak about her new book, Big Magic, and so I'm well aware that most of my issues regarding writing my book are fear based. And so I'm going to pick up the book and actually read it tonight. I've been terrified of that, because once I read it I know I'll have no excuse to let fear be my guide and let it pull me down paths which I have no reason to be on.
Years ago, at the beginning of this blogging thing, my appetite for writing was insatiable. I'd pen blog post after blog post, material flowed from my fingers and onto the page. The more I wrote the more I wanted to write.
That is my point. My point is that maybe it's time to unearth this blog. Because writing here, writing blog posts, has never been scary. There's no getting it right or wrong. Typos are fine. Grammar, eh. I need to get comfortable writing again and realize that I can put words on the page without them being so weighted, so heavy, so emotionally packed. Really, I need to get over myself. A place to keep it light, to write, to connect, and to be seen and heard (aside from, you know, the billion other social media places we can connect and be seen and heard... can you sense the sarcasm?) Someplace to simply write.
Blog posts, to me, have always been about sharing and wanting to touch someone, to connect and maybe inspire or at least get one nod and "yeah, me too." One thing I've learned along this rocky road that is my writing life is that it's often solitary, and the only thing you really need some days is to hear a "yeah, me too" so that you don't go out of your mind with boredom or frustration or even over the top excitement about something that no one in your house is excited about.
So maybe I'll write about writing here. Maybe I'll get back to sharing what books I'm reading (this summer, my friends, was so amazingly full of books!) maybe (quite possibly...) I'll revive the Creating in the Midst series, and maybe (definitely) I'll write through the slump and come out on the other side with stories to share and questions to ask.
I won't tell you where I've been, but I'd love to share a stretch of the road with you some days. To travel alongside and share bits and bobbles from this journey...