If I described the way I came to love my writing in the most eloquent and simplest way possible, those currently in the position I was a few years ago might be left with less hope than they possess now. The writing process and a writer’s career is not a simple nor eloquent thing; it is perhaps one of the darkest, strangest, and most enlightening occurrences to grace the everyday. I won’t ever claim to have the key to the writer’s universe (for perhaps there is not a common one), though I do wish to share a bit of wisdom to those who find themselves at a loss for inspiration.
Elementary school first-days were for me always characterized by paper goodie bags. They came in many colors, fluorescent and attractive to my youthful eye, and they were always filled with tools for growth for the coming year. In my paper garden I could find cleverly shaped erasers and sparkly pencils to replace seed packets and a watering can. How correct it felt to be given pencils in my debut as a writer. I ventured from poetry to prose to essays to everything I could get my hands on. My pen had no boundaries and my mind didn’t either.
The years following elementary school were less cheerful. I found myself writing less and less, fearing that perhaps I would slip into the dreaded awkwardly alliterative version of my pen that was so defining of my writing early on. My teachers never lacked praise for it, but I couldn’t help but think that I was being appeased, disingenuously complemented to preserve my pride. I began to adopt a habit of looking at my old writing in disgust, cringing at my nauseating imagery or drab storylines. The invisible shackles held strong.
To this, writing provided the extra challenge of lacking omnipresence in my life. It became a fleeting desire, visiting me in the least ideal environments, biting my fingers for only seconds, creating a flow I couldn’t attend to until it was too late. It took me seventeen years to begin to learn how to control my writing and to elicit it when I have an idea. This year was the one that I learned the most from writing, too.
My school’s drama club runs a festival of one act plays annually. Students act in, direct, and/or write the shows that are performed. Two of my close friends, both members of the drama club, and I talked about directing shows for them this year. I told myself that I could write my own; how hard could it be? I had never been involved in the drama club before, lacking any ability to sing or act, but I wanted to challenge myself senior year in order to make it memorable. Plus, I had never written a one act before! Why not step out of the comfortable shoes of creative prose and into the ones of a director?
I planned on beginning to write the play in the beginning of 2017, finishing it in February to begin rehearsals in March. But of course, the procrastinator in me convinced my pen to stay subdued until the week before the script was due. Perhaps the text I received from my friend notifying me of the approaching deadline was the beginning of the best few months of my life. In a somewhat panicked fervor, I started writing, and I kept writing like my fingers couldn’t stop, until suddenly I found that writing was no longer biting on my fingers but that I was the mouth, passionately gnawing on an idea until there was nothing left but finished work. I handed in the script, nervous of the reaction I would get from the director of the drama club, but nonetheless excited for what the future would bring.
Rehearsals were both a time to teach and to be taught. I learned that nothing can be accomplished without the valued opinions of others. The script (and cast) went through a number of changes that I believe only made it better. In time, the play came to be something I was proud of rather than embarrassed by. The play, I believe, will be the first of many pieces of my writing that I will not dread to read in a year from now when I venture into my writing folder. The director’s clothes are ones I find comfortable; I hope to slip on her shoes again.
The slump that many writers fall into because of self doubt is not covered by a mound of inescapability. To those whose mind is swamped with frustration or uncertainty, know this; complications are designed to be temporary. They last only to teach lessons, as does writer’s block, for with each word that slips away before we are able to form it a story comes the desire to cradle the lost sentences that could have been our best. The drive that frustration and anger brings is inspiring. Inspiration, while seemingly hard to come by, is all around us. Reach out for it with great fervor, scary desire, and blinding passion.
