Writing on writing.

I can't pinpoint exactly when it happened - maybe when I lost my job and a little bit of my mind a few years ago, or maybe I just didn't think it was important, but I quit writing. I have spent the past three years ignoring the voice in my head that gives me ideas, that drives me to create. Thinking maybe, if I could just bury it in my heart and get it to shut up, it would stop. The countless agents I sent my first book to thought something was missing, so maybe something was and I never saw it.

one of my favorite live photos,
dan andriano of the alkaline trio.

Many people can't say they were a nationally published magazine journalist at 19 years of age. Truthfully, though, that was me. I went to countless live shows, took hundreds of photos, transcribed ten or twenty interviews, and wrote thousands of words. One day, though, it all just floated away. I had the opportunity to speak to people I never thought I would - members of my favorite bands calling me back three days after an initial interview to ask if they could add something because they forgot and wanted to help my piece. People I thought would be terrifying in real life were some of the sweetest I'd ever met. In a lot of ways, I never realized exactly how much that part of my life means to me, even if it isn't an active part now.

We learn from everything we do, whether consciously or not. Every now and again, I would just feel like shit about a project. The press agent was an idiot, the box office couldn't find my tickets, and I couldn't come up with what I thought were good questions at the right time to make a great piece. But every once in awhile, I would get an e-mail either directly or through an editor, telling me that I was a great writer and hoping to read more of my work. Even now, almost a decade later, I still get those types of e-mails every now and again. People tell me that I inspire them.

I never meant to inspire anybody in this life. Hell, most of the time I'm still trying to figure it out myself. But, in many ways, I try to convince people that I know what I'm doing and exactly what's going on all the time. I just about have myself convinced as well, but I don't. I don't see what other people see in me most of the time - maybe that's why I bask in the light of compliments when I get them.

Recently, that voice I was talking about earlier - the one I've been trying to shut up, my wolf at the table, has been coming back stronger than ever. I feel inspired to write, and don't really know why. I'm finally getting over my aversion to writing via a laptop instead of by hand. I'm letting the words flow out, not thinking about it and just letting it go. And for the first time in a long time, I'm not thinking about everyone else. I am doing it because it makes me feel good, and I need to.

If you've ever been driven to put pen to paper, you know exactly what I feel. the way it feels when my inner voice guides me to write something is not something I could ever describe in words. Growing up, I was totally the kind of kid that spent every free moment of her day jotting down thoughts, cataloguing the 'best years of my life' in a beat up collection of notebooks and journals that sit at the bottom of a cardboard box in my second bedroom as we speak. To this day, I still carry a journal in my purse, though mostly unused - just in case I get the pangs I used to. To be fair, I wish for the day when inspiration once again hits me like a ton of bricks and I can put that notebook to use.

The years since I for all intents and purposes quit writing have been filled with some good things, but some bad - and with the bad, I was left to digest the feelings somehow without ever getting them all the way out. Maybe it's why I feel like I have a wall built inside me. I have been my own self-sabateur in so many things - relationships, creativity and my own potential. Initially that sentence said, "am", but if this long-winded rant means anything, it's that I'm ready to once again make writing a priority, if for no other reason than I need it. I need to get the feelings and negativity out of me so it doesn't breed and erode more of me than it already has. My talent is precious, and I think the few years without writing have made me come back and look it straight in the face. Instead of fighting it, I want to re-learn how to embrace that portion of my personality, and I will, just like everything else.

You can do anything you put your mind to, right?