Wednesday. 9 November.

I am sitting in my gray chair. I can hear the ocean, the fog horn, an early car, a drip from this week’s rain. The scratch of my fingers across my eyelid. The intermittent clack of my keyboard. 

I haven’t written here in two weeks because I’ve been busy – I truly have been, with tasks that need my attention and also my focus – but I’m disappointed in myself for that. Every week this year, I’ve sat down at my computer and found something to share. Mainly on Mondays, these words have been ones I’ve committed to sharing, purely for the steady practice of it, but even when they’ve arrived later in the week, I’m glad I’ve put them out there. Part of my gratitude around that, perhaps pride too, is because I think I am winding this blog down. I’m not sure I’ll continue it after December. 

So I’ve been busy but also – I think I am just hitting a wall around writing. I’ve received a slew of rejections lately, and though of course that is part of the writing process, it’s hard to hear No again and again and again without getting a little bruised. I believe in the work I’ve sent out, the fiction, the essays, the poetry. But I also feel like perhaps I deserve the rejections because my writing has been so very sporadic lately. Staccato, if it was music.

I was listening lately to a book – Body Work, by Melissa Febos – in which the author noted that she doesn’t believe in writer’s block. She, instead, said that she believes in fear. That it’s fear holding us back when we feel stuck, not some other force. The words struck me as true; when I later shared them with a group of young writers I work with, they agreed. But what I’m experiencing isn’t really writer’s block, I don’t think; I don’t have trouble with words. It’s more of a block of what to write, or a block around faith that I have something to say. A confidence block, but also an evidence block. Do my words have value? 

Ah, it’s early for such questions. I know that I’ll always write. It’s part of who I am. But sometimes I wonder about the direction that will take and if my efforts should go somewhere else creatively for a while. I enjoy photography and have a lot to learn there. I know I need an outlet for expression, for connection, to make sense of the world. 

I am sitting in my gray chair. I can hear the rush of the heater, the sizzle of a drop landing from my espresso onto the electric stove upon which it brews. The intermittent clack of my keyboard. Wednesday, beginning.