I miss the days when I would be captivated by the fictional characters in my head.
I used to fearlessly tell their stories.
Then my mental health took over for a few years and those characters and their stories were put away in a box and tossed upon a hard-to-reach top shelf.
Though I was always a writer and writing gave me the freedom to emotionally express myself in a way I never could verbally, I had decided for three years to dedicate myself to pursuing fiction writing as a career. I truly believed that would be the route I’d find myself taking for the rest of my life. I connected and started building a community and learned from others’ wisdom. Something had clicked into place those years and I felt like I came home.
Unexpected Dark Waters
Then, life circumstances and my struggling mental dive into dark waters slowly pushed those dreams and activities down the hallway till we reached a forgotten closet and shoved them all in there. It got so dark, I forgot my way and lost track of the closet. With time, I gave up on the contents inside the box that still sang to my soul but I no longer knew how to operate the tools I spent years building.
The NaNoWriMo Experience
Recently, I attempted to return to that inner child who wanted to tell stories and took a stab at writing a novel again. I had yet to open that long-lost closet door but instead, grabbed a fresh new concept and document and for thirty days, I embarked on the community-run experience of writing a novel and it felt encouraging. At the end of those thirty days, there was an emptiness though. I was left on my own again and upon reviewing the new words on the page I spent a month writing, I noticed how much that lost time affected my knowledge and tools I once wielded so confidently.
If you don't use it, you lose it, they say. Well, I most definitely lost some of what came much more naturally to me seven years ago.
The Forgotten Closet & Works of Old
Just recently, I found my way to that old closet and finally opened the door, letting the dust dance in the air around me. I brought out my old friends who felt more like strangers now and spent an evening visiting each of them briefly. I have to admit, I was impressed with their stories. Sure, they were still in their first-draft stages but they looked good. Comparing them to my current project, I wondered, where the hell did the girl who wrote those pages go?
Now, the question is:
Am I going to feel discouraged and allow that to keep me from trying again or am I going to practice and practice until I feel myself return to that writer of old?
Of course, first instinct is to run away. Stay away from any more attempts at writing fiction. The fear of never getting back to where I was is crippling but it’s a thin-veiled lie that will only cause more harm than comfort.
I will never find that inner writer again unless I face the pages and dare to write. Write and write, over and over again until it begins to click and that pride you develop as something fiction you’re creating starts taking an exciting new shape takes center stage.
I challenge myself and anyone else finding themselves wading the waters of creativity once lost, and the challenge is, face the document and as another saying goes, be brave enough to be bad at something. The only way out of being bad at it is going at it over and over again.
Find the things that help spark that creativity again. Watch movies or shows, read more and more books that’ll have you appreciating storytelling and characters again. Fill the well. Find your magic. Refuse to live without it again.
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