When Living is Writing
I am in a moment of living. I am in a moment where life feels rich and full and spicy, primal and real. In a sense, it feels somewhat like a culmination of a few years of more internal reflection, of living inward, of writing deeply, of process. Like the research phase of a doctorate is over and now it is time to see it come to life. I feel a drive to taste new flavours, meet new souls, see new places, live new experiences, out loud, rather than on the page.
A fire has returned. A fire that I missed, that I could feel was missing. It is strange for a Sagittarius to feel dampened, to live without their full fire. I felt not quite me. And yet, I needed the dampening to get to the point where I feel the most me I have felt in so long.
Living outward is tricky for the writing life though. Right now, I am enjoying the living in a way that makes me reluctant to write it, at least at the moment.
“In order to write about life, first you must live it.” Ernest Hemmingway
Do we talk about this as writers? Do we talk about the moments when we have to live in order that we might have anything at all to write about? Do we talk about the way we get to ‘live as a writer’, also in the times when we don’t feel called to actually write. I’ve never bought into the writing everyday school anyway (in my eyes creativity doesn’t roll like that).
Can we talk about the fact that we are no less writers in the moments when we are living the stories that will inspire the words that will inevitably find a way to the page later…tomorrow, next week, next year?
There are stories whirling in my head, don’t get me wrong. A recent camping trip was ripe with short story inspiration, the feeling as I danced the night away a the weekend will surely be written one day in some form I don’t yet know.
And yet, right now I am living, I am loving being in the words of others, editing for clients, planning projects and workshops that will connect me live with other people who long to write, whose eyes light up when I mention the idea that the workshop might help them. Right now, my writing is outward, it wants to connect in real time, it wants to connect to the fire in other people’s hearts. So, I will follow its cue, knowing that these are the ebbs and flows of my tide.
Mentoring and Editing
"A fire has returned." This is so beautiful and generous, Susannah!
Beautiful writing, Susannah. I sense such freedom in this piece 🙏