“A writer not writing is practically a maniac within himself.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

I know I’ve used this quote before but it so perfectly sums up the pull of writing for me. From about 2018 to 2023 I struggled to write much of anything new, after years of ideas that just seemed to flow from points unknown. I worried I had gone to the well too many times and that there was nothing left. Thankfully, after working to plant those seeds of creativity, and getting some major stressors out of my life, words have come back to me like the old friends they are.

The other day I decided to go through a notebook I had kept during this period, where I’d write down any little thing that had any sort of life to it. A lot of it is nothing, but I found this passage from October 2023, when things were getting a little better. It was an attempt at self-inspiration, to kick myself in the ass, and, after forgetting about it completely, enjoyed finding it again. For any writers struggling to make friends with words again, just keep at it, holding that desire softly so as not to choke it, and it will come.

October 16, 2023

Words used to poor out in ecstasy from a place within that seemed an impossibility, my body and mind just a receiver for signals sent from beyond this flesh. Since puberty it has been words that kept me whole, kept me going, dispelled the trauma energy, broke open the aches and blockages throughout my body – my God, I named my website “Words Will Keep Us Together” and when I lost the words I lost the feeling of wholeness, togetherness, oneness that we all need. I used to light rainbows on fire and dance in the colors that not only rained down but shot up around as well.

‘Don’t write in bed, don’t do this, do that, etc. etc. etc.’ I shall return to doing as I please and what is best for me and what is best for me is WORDS. Glorious, glorious words, sculpted into sentences and paragraphs, pages, chapters, books, infinity. Words – the freedom of them, the expansiveness, the openness, the endless possibilities and combinations of them, so save me again. Regain them and regain myself. I’ve been scattered for years, recovering to try to fix things, but losing the foundation of it all, which is creation itself, NEW creation, when pen and paper were always necessary because words, images, scenes, whole stories and lifetimes would just come, unasked for, unsought, organic. A break from sublimity at least until I recover the joy, and perhaps forever. Tell me the songs the singers are singing and let the words seep into my skin, be absorbed, digested and born anew. Let me be born a new intern. See you in hell.