My Tempestuous Affair With Writing

I am on vacation this week.  I strategically planned it so that I am only taking 5 days vacation, but have 10 days off!  Even though it's August 30th, it sounds so far away to say I don't go back to work until September 7th.  September!  Oh how I love that month!  And October!

But I am getting off course...

I attended a writer's workshop this past Saturday.  It was hosted by Sarah Cunningham.  She is a published Christian author, currently has 2 books in print, and countless articles, blog posts, ect.  I have never attended an actual writer's workshop before, and I must admit that I loved it!  I feel so motivated and refreshed!

I've always considered myself a writer.  I started journaling at age 7 (well, it was like 3 weeks before my 8th birthday, so I usually say when I was 8) and haven't stopped since.  Poetry, short stories, I've always been writing something.  But then, at the tail end of what you might call the most tumultuous years of my life came the absolutely hardest event of my entire life.  And with it came some of the best writing I've every done.  But that only lasted for 10 days.  From October 29th-November 9th 2000, I wrote my best as I was at my worst. 

And then came the wall.

I couldn't see over it, I couldn't see around it, I couldn't see under it.  It was massive.  It just came down from the sky one day and made it impossible for me to write.  Oh I kept right on journaling, but that was it.  Nothing else would come. 

After about a year of bottled up creative frustration, I started watercoloring.  Once that passed, I took up knitting.  Then photography.  Then card making.  Then baking.  Then jewelry making.  I am a creative.  I need to create. 

And all throughout the past ten years, I've felt such a longing to write.  The creative juices flowing, dammed behind that wall.  How high would the waters rise before it was breeched and it would all flow from me again?  How long would it take?  Nothing offers the satisfaction of writing.  Even though I did and still do enjoy many of my other creative outlets, none can touch writing.

There's a movie called Mixed Nuts.  It's a dark comedy about suicide hotline workers.  In this movie, there is a character named Felix.  Felix is an artist, specifically a wall artist, a muralist.  All throughout the movie Felix is frustrated that he has no outlet for his creativity.  It causes him to fight with his girlfriend.  He is a pent up frustrated artist.  His girlfriend repeatedly says to him throughout the film, "Felix, you're an artist, just paint something!"  to which he replies, "I'm not just an artist, I'm a WALL artist!  And I have no wall!"  I have really related to Felix these past 10 years.

All of this to say--last December I quit doing any and all creative things.

A last resort.

I have fought the wall in every way I know, so now, I do nothing. 

Wait it out. 

And this past weekend at the writers conference, something amazing happened.  There was suddenly a crack in the dam.  I can feel it in me.  Things that are stirring and whirring up to life.  Memories and thoughts that so long ago went into hibernation, are moving around within me, stretching and filling me.

And even more miraculous is that this has happened when I have an entire 10 days with nothing to do but let it out.

(That girl, she's got a hurricane brewing up inside her.)