How it’s Going…
In my last post I talked about how I grew to love writing and how it helped me express myself growing up. My entire childhood feels as though it was shaped entirely by books and what story I was going to write next. I couldn’t even tell you how many stories I have started writing. All throughout high school it felt like I was starting something new every day. I would sit in the library of my school during my free-periods at a computer and would create an entire document dedicated to profiling characters I would only write a few chapters about before the next idea would take over. I even had an entire Pinterest board that was dedicated to story and character ideas, and it was almost like I couldn’t get the stories out fast enough.
I’m not really sure when it started, but I eventually found myself writing less and less. In my freshman year of college, I began writing the story. Even now, I firmly believe this is the story I want to write and publish as a novel some day. I know my characters well and I know the plot all the way through the second or third book. I love everything about this story and I can’t wait to share it with the world and have it really kickstart my writing career.
However, there’s been a slight problem - I don’t write anymore.
Okay, that’s not entirely the truth. I write here and there, but for the past five, maybe even six years, I have been at a complete standstill when it comes to my writing. Every time I get the itch or I sit down to write, I find myself just staring at the blank page in front of me. I’ve tried several different exercises to try and help combat my writer’s block, but there are some days where I just feel as though I forgot how to write altogether.
I think that’s another big reason why I’ve been wanting to start this blog for so long. I want to find my inspiration again and rediscover why I love writing so much. Taking time to reflect on my childhood and why I started writing to begin with has really helped with starting that process.
At UNC, I took as many creative writing classes as I possibly could. While the fiction classes were my favorite, I also discovered how much I enjoy writing creative non-fiction and screenwriting. Poetry is a slightly different story, but it’s one writing style I’ve never truly been able to fully grasp. But at the end of the day, it didn’t matter to me if I enjoyed the writing class or not - I was writing and I’ve always been the most happy when I write.
By the end of 2019, I had attended my 8th funeral in the span of five years and I had friends who I was close to suddenly stop being my friends. While I was never diagnosed, I do firmly believe that is the most depressed I have ever been. Shortly after, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. I had to quit my job and move back in with my parents for a short time, and I wasn’t able to walk across the stage for my college graduation due to the pandemic closing everything down. I think at this point I just felt so burnt out from school and life that I just stopped reading and I stopped writing, and I’ve been struggling to get back into both ever since.
Since then, though, I have been really trying to find my spark again. I’ll go weeks or even months without writing anything, but then suddenly sit down and hammer out several paragraphs or pages. I couldn’t even tell you how many times I’ve started rewriting my novel because of how much I’ve been struggling to feel like it’s good enough. For the past several months now, I have been going back and forth about beginning this blog because I truly want to start taking my writing seriously again. Since a young age, I knew being an author was the number one thing I wanted to be. Lately I have been feeling like that piece of me is coming back, the piece of me that wants to write returning. I’m hoping this blog will only help amplify that and it’s been awhile since I have felt this excited to start something new.
I’m also hopeful that perhaps I can inspire someone else, even if it is just one person who might be struggling with finding the passion for something they love again. I believe that we each have something that we are amazing at, and that it’s important to hold onto that part of ourselves, no matter what it might be. For me, that is writing, but for someone else that could be drawing, or fishing, or even working on cars.
To end this post, I will once again leave you with a quote, this time from a member of the K-Pop group BTS. Thank you for reading and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next :)
“When things get hard, stop for awhile and look back and see how far you’ve come. Don’t forget how rewarding it is. You are the most beautiful flower, more than anyone else in this world.”
