Writing

I’ve never written about writing before which just now strikes me as a bit strange. It’s such a big part of my life, it’s something that fills up hours of my day. So, let’s talk about writing a bit.

It’s something that I didn’t appreciate being able to do at all until I stopped being able to do it. I used to think that being able to write and having it come easy was something everyone had and I couldn’t understand not being able to enjoy it.

I also barely understood writer’s block – I’d never truly experienced it. I’d had periods when I couldn’t figure out a bit of dialogue or a scene or something else to that effect but it never lasted longer than a few hours – and this was the outlier.

But then, I got really depressed. The worse it got, the harder it was to write. And then I lost it. I’ve written about this before but it’s still just as staggering to remember. I just couldn’t write. It was terrifying for me. Writing was always something that I could do. It was always incredibly natural. But then, one day, it wasn’t. It felt almost like a tap had been turned off.

It was a struggle to get back to it. I think it probably took a little less than a year for me to start writing again at all. I just felt the urge again one day and I started again. It was harder than it’s ever been – think trying to unclog a drain.

The worst thing is that I had to consciously make myself write. I was so out of practice that it just didn’t work the way it once had. But Alhamdulilah, I’ve gotten to a stage where I can write again. And, funnily enough, I’m doing it more regularly now than I ever did.

My writing journey started up again with applying to competitions. Then, I started this blog – I still wasn’t any kind of regular but I was starting to get there. Finally, I started to journal. And that, more than anything, helped me to get back into it all regularly. Confession time – I sometimes skip journalling still when I’m feeling particularly nasty and overwhelmed.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve had a lot of ups and downs when it comes to writing. But I appreciate it a whole lot more now. So, I suppose it was worth it in the end to struggle – it makes the final product feel a whole lot more meaningful, I’ll say that much.

Something interesting I discovered when I started to blog and journal was that every kind of writing is different. Writing a blog post differs from writing in my journal differs from writing a short story differs from writing an essay. It’s all different in tiny little ways that makes my style and approach change just a little bit.

I think that’s really cool, don’t you?