Some Thoughts on Writing

Lately, I’ve been getting up in the morning and writing.  I check the usual “stuff” on the internet: Facebook, the blogs I like to read, my email, and then I get to work—typing away.  I sit in the blue recliner that used to be my Gipop’s.  Hubby says it is his chair, but I have completely taken it over.  I turn on the gas fireplace, I put earphones in my head to drown out any morning noises, and I write. 

I have this hour of solitude in the morning, and now for me it has a purpose, to become a better writer.  I’ve started a story this week and it seems to be going somewhere.  I will have to rewrite it about twenty times before I’m content with it, I’m sure, but the writing flows off my fingertips into my laptop with hardly a thought. 

This weekend, I was talking to my sister about writing.  She told me how much she loved my blog about Mary Ward Brown’s book.  I commented on how it was funny, because I sat down and wrote that without even thinking.  My best posts come from my heart, and they seem so easy to pen.  It is a strange feeling of something coming from my heart, almost, not my head.  I told her, when I wrote that post, it was like I wasn’t even there—lost in my own subconscious and just transcribing it to the computer screen, to Word 2010. 

We spoke about happiness and depression.  It’s no secret I’ve been depressed this year.  I am and have been looking for an outlet, looking for a way to make myself happy (or to feel happiness again, as it is always there, just harder to notice).  Writing is one of those ways.  As I put words on paper, filling up a white, blank page with thoughts and ideas, I’m creating something.  I have the ability to sort out thoughts and to generate whole worlds out of nothing.  I’ve been blessed with this capability, and I NEED to use it every day.  When I’m writing, I feel more whole.  It is the hardest thing to describe.  Sometimes, I wake up and I think, “Oh no, I have to write another blog today!” but then some thought comes to me and the words spill out onto the paper.  Sometimes it comes so easily and other times it doesn’t.  Immediately after writing, I can tell if it’s good or not. I have a deeper sense of satisfaction when it comes from deep down, sort of like a sense of relief from telling a secret you’ve kept for years. 

I’d love to live in those moments of satisfaction for the rest of my life.  I want the feeling that I’ve created something wonderful, a book that touches the soul and gives other people a glimpse of my “world.”  I read once, writers write to sort out problems or issues they see in their own lives.  Writing allows them to sort through ideas, emotions, thoughts they don’t fully understand (or can’t come to terms with), and I do think this is true.  I believe this is why I was called back to writing while I was/have been so depressed: to sort through my thoughts and emotions and find my way again.