voices

since grampa died, i have not been focused on writing as i was before. to be honest, it's been a very dry spell.

with this realization come the questions...

what if this crazy writer thing is just something that i desire, not something i actually am? what if all my dreams in this realm are merely illusions or worse…delusions? i read the words of others who move me, and realize that while i have things inside of me to say, i currently am not able to remove them from me. and that is what a writer needs to do… detach from themselves the words, angst, emotion, ideas, and smear them onto paper.

am i too lazy? do i not give my voice the opportunity to emerge? why is it far easier to stare at a screen, play solitaire or even clean than to wrestle with what is inside me to the point where it can come out and become an entity of its own?

and then, after what has been so firmly a part of you is down on paper {or the blogosphere}, it is subject to the world and all its opinions. to criticism, first from the unending critic inside of me, then to the world at large. do i want to subject this piece of myself to such hostility?

but the opposite is equally as unappealing as well. to sit alone in a room with all the unrealized words, dreams, thoughts, ideas living inside of me... making me feel that i am living only a shadow...

i write not because i want to, but because i have to.

“if you hear a voice within you saying, ''you are not a painter,'' then by all means paint… and that voice will be silenced.” {Vincent van Gogh}

i pray this works for writers as well...