I joked with friends the other day that after transcribing several years worth of hand-written journals from my younger years, I now recognize it would be no great loss if they were all destroyed in a fire. There’s little of interest in them. They’re not deep, they’re not filled with big ideas or beautiful writing. … Continue reading I like the act of writing
I can’t believe that in more than 35 years of journaling with pen and ink, I never used a fountain pen. For 35 years, I wrote without experiencing the fluid feel of wet ink on quality paper. I did not know the joy of the tactile differences among nibs, barrels, inks, and paper. My husband … Continue reading Pens, paper, and ink
Last year, I stuffed my prompt box with words that would put me in the world I want to be in: on a boat in the Caribbean. I was (and still am) learning how to sail, and I filled my prompt box with sailing terms to help me inhabit that world. These are the prompts … Continue reading Should a story called “Squall” include a squall?
I decided last week to write more. I am in the habit of journaling for myself, and I also wanted to get back in the habit of doing prompted free writes, and blogging, and I also want to really, truly, for real this time transcribe all my old journals. That’s a lot of different kinds … Continue reading Writing More Means Doomscrolling Less
It used to be that I was able to put aside self-consciousness about publishing on my blog. I published unpolished random writing exercises, outtakes of nothings on my mind, vignettes of a woman sweeping her walk at the beach. Sometime in the recent past, maybe in the last year or so, that has changed. I … Continue reading Thoughts on blogging
I’m not typically an anxious person. In normal times, I worry about what-ifs, but not to a paralyzing extent. Lately, though, I struggle. I’m already prone to living inside my head. This is mostly fine when the world isn’t on fire (though, I’ve realized lately, the world is always on fire, but as Haruki Murakami … Continue reading Write this moment
