I just started reading Tehanu by Ursula Le Guin, the 4th book in her Earthsea series. Her writing style is so beautiful to me. It fills me with a sense of longing and urgency: I want to be able to do that. I feel the same way about Tolkien’s works, or whenever I watch the Lord of the Rings movies.
It inspired me to dig out The Artist’s Way again, and continue working through it to see if I can unblock my creativity. Synchronistically, I left off on week 8 which is about “Recovering a Sense of Strength” and it had many, many phrases that rung true for me. In essence it was about taking our creative losses and grief and turning them into opportunities. Reminding ourselves that it doesn’t take big leaps to get to where we want to go–it’s about small steps that we can take every day. And daring ourselves to keep looking at the far-off goal that fuels us and keep making those steps.
This spoke to me deeply because I haven’t written any prose of significant length, or really finished any writing project, in 10 years. I let my failures pile up in my head and replay over and over and keep me from moving forward. Looking at my past blog posts, it took me 2 years of still being stuck to pick up The Artist’s Way again.
One of the exercises this week was goal-setting, for 5 years out, 3 years out, 1 year out, 1 month out, 1 week out, and today. “In a perfect world, I would secretly love to ___.” For me: be a published author. To have something I write be widely read and well-received and make peoples’ lives a little bit better. I know that with the Internet anyone can instantly be published, but I’d also like to be professionally critiqued, and reach a wide audience. Perhaps there’s an alternate way to get there than being published in a book or magazine. I’ll explore that.
Part of the goal-setting exercise included defining my “true north”, which made me think yet again through why I like writing. I used to think it was purely selfish, that it was all about the praise. That I just want to be published and don’t want to do any of the actual writing. But, I know that’s not true, especially when I read Ursula Le Guin. It’s not, “I wish I was famous,” it’s “I want to be like you. I want to affect others like your work affects me.” And I miss the act of writing sometimes. For me it’s also not just about expressing myself, which I sometimes think is all it is. I don’t like to write in a void where no one can see it. Journaling alone is not satisfying enough.
Since working with my therapist about what I truly value, I think I see the truth more clearly: I enjoy helping others feel more connected to each other, to themselves, and to the world around them. I share vulnerable stories of myself so that people can hopefully relate and feel that sense of common humanity, that they’re not alone. I want to connect people to the beauty that I see in the world, so that they can see it too. These are the things I enjoy most when I read.
The past few years, I’ve gone though phases where I get inspired to get back to writing, and then I don’t do it. It’s possible this is another one of those times. But I’d like to think that it isn’t. And even if my writing practice is few and far-between… it’s there. It’s not nothing. And I share this with you in the hopes that I’ll hold myself accountable, and remember why I enjoy writing: because I want to bring that same joy I feel when reading, to others.
This all is even more timely because of the state the world is in. I have a lot more time to sit and think, for better or for worse. A lot of feelings are running around in my head that I need to express somehow. My therapist recently asked me what my long-term goals are for myself and I struggled to respond; after today, I’ve decided I’d like to make being published one of my goals again.