Rediscover Your Love of Writing -- Let's Get Real and Forgive

Hello writing friends! How's it going? You may be wondering where the heck I went for the past few days.  I mean, everything was going so well!  You were getting your daily writing inspiration.  I was writing daily (maybe not 1500 words, but I was writing every day).  Then what happened? I thought about telling you all that I got sick, or that my dog did, or something else like that.  But then I realized that I didn't want to do that.  When I looked deeper into my motivations for not attempting to save my reputation, I remembered something that had come to me during a journal writing experience while I was away: When you write, you cannot ignore the truth of yourself.  When you're not writing, is what you are trying to avoid actually the truth of yourself?  There is something inherently connected between the act of writing, and truth.  When I'm writing, I'm more in tune with parts of myself than I am at any other time. But then there are those times when it seems that life gets shaken up and shifts about in ways that seem bent on keeping me from writing.  Like this week.  My partner and I were fighting.  My household has decided to leave our residence of four years and move to Alameda.  I was teaching on Monday night, and had to prep for class.  All sorts of things that seemed to be evidence that the world has it out for my writing goals. When I think about it, though, that doesn't make any sense at all -- not when I consider what the universe has told me about itself in my most quiet moments.  Life wants us to write, to connect with ourselves and wider, more expansive truths, to evolve and leave this planet more beautiful and expressed than before we came here.  So if it isn't that life is obstructing me from my writing, it only stands to reason that I am obstructing myself -- and using life with all of its myriad fascinating distractions as an excuse. Today I went to yoga for the first time in months.  My body felt so darn good afterwards, it hardly felt like the same arms and legs and back as those that walked into the studio.  As I walking out of the studio, feeling clear in my body and easy in my mind, it dawned on me how stressed out I had been over the past few days (the ones where you good people had all experienced a profound radio silence from me).  And then I realized why I had been avoiding writing -- avoiding the truth of myself -- for the past couple of days.  I didn't want to slow down and feel that pain.  I knew that if I did, it would force me to shift the patterns that I was playing out, in theory because I wanted to get certain things accomplished.  I would be forced to ask myself hard questions that I didn't want to ask.  So, rather than do that, I avoided writing. Well, I'm done with that.  I'm getting real with you right here and right now, updating my writer's mission, and radically embracing truth.  Here are a couple of tidbits around that: 1. I don't want to write a novel right now.  I've tried and tried, and it just isn't where my heart is.  Sorry, Nanowrimo.  We've missed each other again.  I do, however, really want to reconnect with the short story class I'm taking and get back on board with it (especially as I'm paying good money for it), possibly working towards an anthology of shorts instead. 2.  I'm getting some great leads in writing for internet publication, and that's exciting!  To further that momentum, I'm going to write another article for Tikkun, MindBodyGreen, and Rebelle Society by the end of this month.  I'm also going to review some of the things that were rejected by those very same publications in the last two or three months, edit them, and see if I can submit them elsewhere. 3.  I'm formally going to forgive myself for not having written 1500 words a day over the past four days, and let them go.  Not try to make them up.  Not make it mean I stink.  Nothing.  Just letting it go and moving forward, back into my writing. So, where are you in this journey?  Does it feel far away now, or are you right on track?  If you're like me, in a stumbling phase, I recommend you let go of what hasn't been done or wasn't done perfectly, and give yourself full loving permission to start again.  If you're doing awesome, well, then, awesome!  Congrats and keep up the good work. Either way, drop us a note in the comments below or in the Facebook Group and let us know! Back in the writer's trenches with you, Rebecca