I have trouble relaxing; I have moments were I delight in doing nothing, playing video games or catching up on the reading regiment I’ve tasked myself with, but as of late, I can’t do any of those things for too long. After having written nothing but poetry the past month, I think my brain is just crying out to be used for creative work that I can truly enjoy. Now, I’m not knocking poetry. From all the English classes I’ve taken, I’ve saved the poetry books. I usually carry one on my person to thumb through and acquire inspiration, and I do so love The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes that I have a playlist consisting of one sound file where a man reads that poem that I can repeat ad infinitum. My issue with writing poetry is that it’s just not my medium. I’m…tolerable…at it, but where writing fiction or articles feels like I’m canoeing through a calm mountain lake or rushing whitewater rapids, poetry makes me feel like I’m paddling through syrup: I get stuck. I find myself on the receiving end of writer’s block more often than I’d like to, but something about stanzas and line breaks makes writing more akin to putting a square block through a circular hole, in the sense that there is a lot of forced effort. I must admit, however, that if I didn’t spend the last half of the semester mocking the work of Frost or Ginsberg for nothing.

I learned quite a bit on the editing process and that going through many drafts is something that shouldn’t make me as uncomfortable as it usually makes me. Aside from that, I feel released and reinvigorated. Writing is expressive and freeing, but I felt as though I had leather bands strapped around me, tying me down and containing my full range of motion. Now those bindings have been taken off, and I feel reinvigorated to make things-to write things. I want to get back to following in the footsteps of great writers and write every day, as I did in my senior year. Hammering out five hundred to a thousand words was so liberating and empowering, and my hands are craving that sensation once more.

So far, I’m in the drafting and research stage. I’ve been storyboarding the past two weeks, learning all different kinds of American folklore, historic and modern, and I’m hoping to have something tangible by the end of the summer. All of the ideas are coalescing in the think tank, but the cardinal direction I’m following is the word chilling. That’s a hard word to capture, quite the lofty goal, but I so desperately want to try it. I’ve read so many competent tales of the strange in the past two years that I’ve lost count, and I want to have a go at giving back to that group of readers and writers.

Truly, I thought I’d spend my first few days or so home from school catching up on sleep, but this drive to bring something new into existence has me awake at the earlier hours in the morning. I was originally worried of having too much on my plate, but that slight dread has melted and re-solidified. I just need to use my tools to hammer it into shape, and maybe I’ll make something that shines. Whatever it is, it will be my own. That’s what’s most important at this point.