What Now?
by Emily Reed
All January— a whole 31 days— I was writing. Everyday, I responded to the daily prompt in an unusual or unexpected way to challenge myself. To make it even more difficult, I took away my safety net: free verse poetry.
I was five days into the challenge and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. I was tired of losing sleep because I agonized over little details, sentence fragments, poetic meter, and creating the perfect ending.
By about day 10, I learned to write down all my ideas and edit later since it’s impossible to edit a blank page. It made my writing go quicker but I still lost sleep. Yet, I don’t regret it. You can always drink more caffeine but you don’t always have inspiration.
Eventually, I was used to the bohemian lifestyle. I didn’t care that I was sleeping at odd hours on the couch in my basement because I was expressing my creativity through my favorite art form that I had been neglecting.
Now that the challenge is over, it feels strange that I won’t be booting up my computer at 10 o'clock to type my next piece. The diverse biomass of material that I’ve produced in January is more than I’ve ever produced in a year.
That made me realize that I’m even farther from reaching my goal of validating myself as a writer. The Oxford English Dictionary (also known as the only dictionary you’ll ever need) says that a writer is “a person who has written something or who writes in a particular way.” By that definition, I’ve written 31 pieces that I am the writer of.
Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that. In my mind, a writer fits that definition but also is prolific and gains success. I realized that I don’t write enough or have the required numbers of physical or emotional accolades to call myself a writer.
Yet, for the first time, I feel as if I’d truly caught the lightning bugs of writing. I want to continuing catching lightning bugs. Maybe I won’t go out and catch them every day, but I certainly want to pursue a few interesting bugs.
I’m already looking at literary magazines to submit to. Right now, I’ve caught a bunch of lightening bugs in a jar and if I remove the lid, to take a break, they’ll all escape. And I’ll be back at ground zero.
I decided that for my health and theirs, it’s best if a few lightening bugs escape. After my short break to recharge my brain, I plan to jump back onto the page. Only time will tell if I’ll lose the habit I picked up or if I continue my fervorous writing. Perhaps I’ll lie somewhere in between.
I was five days into the challenge and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. I was tired of losing sleep because I agonized over little details, sentence fragments, poetic meter, and creating the perfect ending.
By about day 10, I learned to write down all my ideas and edit later since it’s impossible to edit a blank page. It made my writing go quicker but I still lost sleep. Yet, I don’t regret it. You can always drink more caffeine but you don’t always have inspiration.
Eventually, I was used to the bohemian lifestyle. I didn’t care that I was sleeping at odd hours on the couch in my basement because I was expressing my creativity through my favorite art form that I had been neglecting.
Now that the challenge is over, it feels strange that I won’t be booting up my computer at 10 o'clock to type my next piece. The diverse biomass of material that I’ve produced in January is more than I’ve ever produced in a year.
That made me realize that I’m even farther from reaching my goal of validating myself as a writer. The Oxford English Dictionary (also known as the only dictionary you’ll ever need) says that a writer is “a person who has written something or who writes in a particular way.” By that definition, I’ve written 31 pieces that I am the writer of.
Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that. In my mind, a writer fits that definition but also is prolific and gains success. I realized that I don’t write enough or have the required numbers of physical or emotional accolades to call myself a writer.
Yet, for the first time, I feel as if I’d truly caught the lightning bugs of writing. I want to continuing catching lightning bugs. Maybe I won’t go out and catch them every day, but I certainly want to pursue a few interesting bugs.
I’m already looking at literary magazines to submit to. Right now, I’ve caught a bunch of lightening bugs in a jar and if I remove the lid, to take a break, they’ll all escape. And I’ll be back at ground zero.
I decided that for my health and theirs, it’s best if a few lightening bugs escape. After my short break to recharge my brain, I plan to jump back onto the page. Only time will tell if I’ll lose the habit I picked up or if I continue my fervorous writing. Perhaps I’ll lie somewhere in between.