Some days, I wake up and have no idea what to write about if anything. Who knows if it will be a good day or just another run through the doldrums. These thoughts soon pass as quickly as they came.
I don’t have to force myself to write, but I do have to make myself. I write because I like to write. It is a very cheap hobby, and a great creative outlet. It is a form of meditation. I start with a thought and follow it to completion in my head. It doesn’t have to be deep or novel, it just has to be something I can bring to life on paper. I force myself down paths I wouldn’t take for the sake of better understanding myself.
Each word I write is like a word spoken from the depths of my heart filtered through the turmoil of my mind. The clearer I write, the clearer my mind becomes. The more I write, the more clearly I think. Each sentence is a sound thought liberated from the noise.
As the thoughts pass through the noise, the room quiets. The volume drops and I fall into the stream of my own mind. My mind finds peace. The noise turns into music before fading into silence. My catharsis is complete. I am comfortably numb.
Writing as Meditation
Writing is a catharsis, but it is also a form of meditation for me. My mind becomes mindful of the one task in front of me. All that matters is the words on the paper.
I quiet the noise in my sea of thoughts and let the topic show itself as the waters calm. Eventually the world around me disappears and all that is left is the topic and the blinking of a cursor on my screen. I pull the words out and try to ride the turbulence of the ebbs and flows of my thoughts. As I get more and more in sync with the motion, my writing flows more and more naturally.
I become one with my medium.
Writing as Art
I used to struggle with writer’s block when I first started doing copywriting and ghost writing. It was hard to care about things which don’t matter, but ultimately, even this article doesn’t really matter. All that matters is the process through which made it. I write for the sake of writing. I push myself to create something for the sake of creation. The end result may be discarded, but the process pushes me to grow and recenter myself.
I love to make things. Writing gives an outlet where the only limitation is your imagination and thoughts. Even an article about something as mindnumbing as a gaming mouse gives you more avenues than you would think. You choose to accentuate the information about features or performance. You draw it as comfortable or as powerful. Your words have the power to shape this object in the mind’s of others as you shape it in your own.
Like an artist’s brush on canvas, you paint the topic with words to draw the strokes and textures to accentuate various features. Sentences and paragraphs spell out the angle and the distance of each item and each focus. Your heart, your mind, even your very soul all come together to create a single image of what you’re writing about.
Why Writing?
Writing isn’t my only escape. I love music and art, but writing pushes me in a different direction in a way the others don’t. It isn’t better, it’s just better for me more often.
I work with computers all day. Writing gives me a warmth which contrasts the coldness of a machine. It gives me balance. Music does the same, but the emotional release or physical fatigue wears me out before my mind feels truly satisfied. I can feel like not playing music, I really can’t say the same of writing.
Writing gives me balance. The release is controlled. I have to maintain focus to maintain control of music, but writing flows for me. It’s much easier to bump out a single paragraph then move on with a kid, but I can’t really say the same of working on a song.
Writing for the Sake of Writing
I can write about almost anything now. After years of writing about widgets and junk no one reads except in passing, I lost my personal attachment to the results of my writing. I am mindful of what I’m doing. I write for the sake of writing. I live for the sake of living. The process is what brings me happiness, not the results.
All you need to write is a pen and paper, or a keyboard and a computer. Your mind, your imagination, your emotions, and your willingness to bare yourself to the paper are all it takes to write well.
Featured image by Free-Photos from Pixabay