Permission to Be

I read two rather interesting things today. The first was from Natalie Goldberg's book Writing Down the Bones, where she assured me that it's ok to take breaks from writing. To take a day or a week or even a year off without feeling like you have no right to call yourself an artist anymore. This really resonated with me after my year-long writing break that I only recently ended in the fall. It meant that I'm still a writer even though I didn't write a single word for such a long time.

The other interesting piece I read was an article about a writer who decided to follow the habits of several famous writers, because he felt like his own habits were not measuring up. It was called "I Copied the Routines of Famous Writers and It Sucked." In the end none those routines worked for him, although there were pieces and parts that he carried forward and would incorporate into his life.

I think I'm learning to do the same.

There are so many rules about how you should write, when you should write, under what conditions you should write, and how much time you should spend doing all of these things. I've spent an inordinate amount of time beating myself up for never meeting any of these directives.

• I don't write every single day without fail, although I go through periods in my life where I do. 
• I don't write a certain amount of words or for a certain amount of time, although occasionally I make a note of how many words I can churn out in an "average" writing session. 
• I like to take breaks from writing entirely on a pretty regular basis, usually to read or to bake some cookies or to otherwise engage with other humans.

It was nice to get permission, today, to just be who I am. To write in the spurts that make up my personality and that allow me to create the things that do come out. Because trying to put myself into a box and conform to a list of accepted rules for writers...sucks. It makes me miserable. It makes me ineffective. It makes me quit.

I have made some changes recently that have gone along with the new understanding I've described above. One of those is deciding to use a large blank notebook I got for Christmas to free write whenever I like. It's perfect for the days I don't want to work on my manuscript and when I also don't want to post something here. Both of those activities require proofing and polishing so that what I create can be shown to the world. And sometimes I don't want to do that.

In fact, sometimes I just want to write for the sake of writing without having to show it to anyone when I'm done. And for whatever reason I want to have a separate space to do this that isn't in my journal, where I document my life and my feelings, and that isn't in my little black notebook, where I write down all of my ideas or sometimes work on poetry.

When I think of someone like Ernest Hemingway (I love his work) I picture a man surrounded by notes and books, with words and scenes jotted all over the place in a disheveled mess. And I have no idea if this is anything close to his reality, but I like the idea for me...just in a more organized way.

I like the idea of having different places for different things. I give myself a lot of reasons for not writing, such as:

1. I don't feel like thinking that hard (manuscript)
2. I don't feel like publishing anything (blog)
3. I don't feel like editing or rereading or reworking (both of the above)
4. I don't feel like vomiting unproductively into a journal right now
5. I don't feel like writing for very long, maybe just a minute or two
6. I don't feel like trying to come up with something cohesive to say
7. I don't feel like searching for a topic
8. I don't feel like I have anything to offer at the moment

I think that if I give myself places where I can go ahead and write, when I want to, as a sort of "out" for the obstacles I just listed, I think I'll be able to get more done.

Giving myself "permission to be" feels really freeing and is making me write more. I'm learning that I have permission to write when I want to, I have permission to write crap, I have permission to write well, and I have permission to write without needing it to be anything earth shattering or record breaking. I don't have to write a bestseller.

Yesterday I wrote in my nice new notebook because I didn't want to have to drain my brain. I don't know if it's anything, but it felt good doing it. The night before I wrote in my journal, just to put pen to paper for a while and to update myself on my feelings about my life post-medical procedures. Tonight I'm at my computer, typing in this blog because I had the mental energy to do so, and because I felt like I wanted to.

Step by step I'm becoming more free of the constraints I used to subject myself to. I do recognize that it's easy to fall back into old habits if you let down your guard for a moment, but I truly feel like I'm at a turn in the road. It'll be interesting to see what unfolds next.