Saturday, May 2, 2015

Keepin' It Real: Emotionally Raw {New Series}

freedigitalphotos
Today, I took off from work to take The Man Beast to a doctor's appointment out of town. He doesn't drive anymore. The 45-minute drive each way gives us an opportunity to talk. Real talk. Undisturbed. Up close and personal.

While the nature of the doctors visits aren't exactly positive or something that either of us look forward to, the drive is something we both cherish.

Today, we talked about many things. Our talks usually involve the heart-to-hearts. Sometimes, we just talk about stuff that annoys us, in general. They are good talks and I enjoy them.

But as we were driving back into town, we got on the subject of distractions. I don't think he'd mind me telling you that his distraction is video games. My distraction is reading.

My distraction used to be writing, but with the hustle and bustle of life in general, I've gotten away from it.

And I told The Man Beast as much.

"I look back at older blog posts and they're pretty good. Not great by any means, but good. I look at more recent ones and they are lacking something."

People continue to compliment me on my writing. I suppose I have nuggets of genius. Well, more like tiny flecks. But they are there.

In the moments of silence, I wondered what changed between my writings three years ago and my writings today. Logically, I should have more to write about today than I did three years ago. But the truth of the matter is that I'm so overwhelmed with the emotion of the past three years, that I think I'm paralyzed in my writing.

Much of it I cannot share in a public forum. At least not yet; if ever. Other parts are so incredibly raw that I'm afraid of sharing. What will people think? Especially people in my real-life circle of influence who know me - or at least know of me?

But writing has always, always been therapeutic for me. As a child, there were times when my mother and I couldn't talk to each other without eating one another alive. But we could write. And we did. I don't even remember who began the trend, but if it was her, it was a stroke of genius on her part.

Writing letters to one another allowed us to say our peace without fear of the other interrupting us. I don't ever remember writing hateful things (she might be able to tell you differently), but my writing was always honest.

And I think I've gotten away from that honesty.

For four years, while I finishing my degree (the second time around), I wrote a research paper every week except for holidays. I usually took one class, every eight weeks. On occasion, I took two.

Very few of these papers had emotion in them. The closest I ever came to  emotional writing was when I explained my teaching philosophy. And even then I had to back it up with facts.

How can you support emotional writing with facts?

You can't.

Emotional writing is just that. It's not necessarily based on facts, except the ones you perceive from your point-of-view. Not everyone's truth is your truth. Exposing your truth is what makes writing great.

Even fiction writing has an element of truth in it somewhere. It has to. Otherwise, it's flat.

Emotion makes writing, all writing, come alive.

So, I'm attempting to get back to me in my writings. To do this, I'm starting a new Rambling that I'm going to call Keepin' It Real. And I'm going to do exactly that. I'm going to expose my heart and my mind and put myself out there like I used to.

I am what is missing in my most recent writings.

I write for me. I don't write for you. I let you read it, but ultimately, I need to write for me. If what I write can inspire you - fabulous. But I need to write. I just need to.

I don't need to write a book. I've done that. Maybe one day, I'll flesh it out a bit more and consider publication. But right now, it's one of those things I did to prove to myself I could do it.

I don't belong publishing anything until I can get back to who I am as a writer. I've lost it, but I intend to gain it back.

So, periodically (read: when the mood strikes), I will write a raw piece. It will be truthful. I will hold nothing back.

One day, I hope to share everything. But until then, I'll share what I can doing the only thing I can.

By writing.

Until next time...

Photobucket

1 comment:

Thank you for taking the time to comment. I know how precious your time is and I appreciate you spending a few seconds with me.