GPS THIS!

DAILY PROMPT

Back to Life

After an especially long and exhausting drive or flight, a grueling week at work, or a mind-numbing exam period — what’s the one thing you do to feel human again?

 

 

 Just before I turned 49 one of my cousins died, my Dad died, both of my dogs died and  for the first time since I began writing at age 9 I honestly could not write a word because the inspiration, the joy of it all was just gone.

Losing my ability to write was the hardest thing that happened that year, it was hard because I had always seen myself as being the person who wrote.

So with my identity in the crapper and on it’s way to wherever raw sewage gets sent ( oh sure…it ALL gets sent to a treatment plant I am SURE) my entire life came to a screeching halt.

I felt less then human on so many levels.

The first thing I tried to get back was my Writing Mojo.

Do you know the world is full of advice on how to do that? They write books about it, you can go to lectures about it, ” All you have to do, ” I was told over and over again ” is just sit down and write.”

” Oh really? ” I remember thinking. ” Wow. That’s SO obvious. Why the heck didn’t I think of that?”

Well of course it wasn’t that easy.

Most of the time I wrote snarky obituaries for people who thought it was so simple, all I had to do was just ‘sit down and write’. You know what I wanted to do? Tell them I took their advice and show them what I was writing. I remember thinking I’d lose some friends but there would be a few less red wagons in need of fixing out there in the big bad world.

So in the end, as it often is often the case, I found my own way,  sat down and started to write again.

I didn’t read advice books, I didn’t go to a meetup and talk to other writers about not being able to write.

One day I sat down here at my blog and started to read my stories.

The older stories were the first stories I wrote- and I left them as is because over the years I thought it would be cool to see how I grew as writer. I’d do a lot of them different, but why mess with the work of a writer who worked that hard? As it was, I loved those. I’m proud of them. Even if they are far from perfect.

 And then I got to the more recent ones and I couldn’t believe they were mine.

It made me want to write again so I picked up on these daily posts at WordPress. I looks forward to doing one ( or two ) a day.

Of course I don’t think I’m doing them exactly right, but what’s the worst that can happen? I can’t get fired for not following the rules and nobody is going to die over it.

 My responses are what they are.

In  the end I felt human again, like Anita Marie the writer again because I went back and found myself lost there in the weeds and ruins- and there in that mess was my writer’s voice just waiting for me.

I think I was lucky this time.

May we never part ways again.