It can be messy.
Sometimes the words come out sideways, or in a jumbly mess of intrusive thoughts and run-on sentences.
It can be scary.
Writing brings things to the surface, directly or indirectly revealing our secrets, assumptions and fears.
It can be difficult.
There requires a certain audacity to write, to dare try capture the human experience on paper (or pixels).
Writing, like most pursuits, can be waylaid by events of life.
Because life is messy, and scary, and difficult.
And people in life can be messy, and scary, and difficult too.
That is the thing about writing.
The same forces that interfere with writing (better, more often, or at all) are the same ingredients for writing something real, writing meaningful words, writing pages worth reading.
Which brings up a catch-22: well-written scenes or journaling something honest and true all require first writing poorly, require mistakes to learn from, require practicing not in spite of life but because of it!
Life cannot be in the way of art when art is life itself.
People cannot be in the way of writing well if writing well requires personality and character and dialogue.
The thing about writing is not to avoid life but to embrace it in all its contradictions. How we respond to life – with its victories and defeats, heroes and villains, tragedies and miracles – impacts not only if we can find the strength and purpose and voice to live, but it impacts too what we choose to do with it.
Thanks for reading
archie
archie writes 