Practice Makes Perfect
Don’t forget to let loose when you write
As I Look Back at My Work
I started to notice that I used to write and self-publish more than poetry here on this platform. I don’t know if it’s because I just got caught up in my poetry for the time or if it’s because life has been changing a lot around me these days. Either way, I haven’t been posting a whole lot of articles. As I was scrolling through my written past, I noticed I had some comments from people around the time I was struggling and just starting. I was having trouble staying consistent and to my relief, a few people commented and told me I shouldn’t give up, that I was pretty good.
So? I realize the more you practice at something, the better you get. I haven’t been writing just to write. I haven’t let my fingers do the talking for me in a very long time now and for what I can say? I can feel my words slipping. I can honestly see how searching for an idea and sitting in front of a computer screen TRYING to come up with something by force to write about is not at all working out for me. Then it hit me, maybe it’s because I stopped not worrying about it? Somehow thinking about something too hard and not letting it just flow out on its own is creating resistance for me, maybe even starting to create a block.
Write for the Fun of Writing
Then, looking at some of my old words of wisdom and past inspiration it hit home. I stopped talking altogether. I stopped just shooting the shit when I write. I stopped being me and just let the worried tones in my writing roll right off my shoulders. I lost my voice after a while and some of it is because of things I have been dealing with and honestly, some of it is straight-up just because I haven’t given myself the time to just write for the fun of writing.
“Anyone who survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his life.” — Flannery O’Conner
If this isn’t the truest quote there is, I now understand these things don’t have to be forced and that it’s okay to let loose and have a little fun in my writing and hey, it might be what I needed altogether. Practice makes perfect and now? I think I am going to practice just letting loose and knowing that the story I need is there, I just have to let it flow.