Diving Deep – My New Writing Journey

More and more I’m drawn to write.

I can feel it, calling to me. Tugging at my shirt hem.

A warm whisper drawing me near. A temptress that until now, only comes to call on my doorstep and rarely stays past tea.

But I desperately want to make a home in my heart for writing. I want to snuggle into its velvet love-seat and find Myself there each time.

I want to write every day and make it a practice, a ritual, an act of devotion.

But I’ve written to you so little this past year and it leaves me feeling stagnant and stifled and honestly, a little nervous to begin again.

Nervous that you won’t like what I write about, or that I’ll be a bother, or that my voice will slip away from me again, as it has these past years.

This is what happens when you get out of practice with your craft. Your biggest obstacles become the irrational doubts you whisper to yourself in the night.

But through great friends and new inspirations, I find her, the Muse, calling to me again and again.

Write! Write! Write!

Ideas swirl inside me like colorful galaxies of glitter. Pinks and emerald greens and gold. Waiting to be plucked from the stars and strewn down like watercolors on the page.

And through years of creation, I know that if I do not heed her calls, the ideas will fade and slip away from me, and I will feel empty and unexpressed. A failure of a vessel.

It’s a burning emotion that I must constantly stave off in both my painting and writing practices. And a difficult task with as little writing as I’ve finished this year.

My main fear in writing has always been that of being a burden or a bother. Of taking up space. Of sucking. And I’m just realizing as I write this, that this fear is now met with a new, paradoxical fear of not writing enough, of not being in service enough. Of not taking myself seriously. Of not doing the work I am called to do.

For my biggest fear in life is that I will get to my end, having not sought out the things in my heart. It is why I do so many things that I do and why I follow my passions with so much faith.

And it is because of all this — The inspiration. The new bellow I hear like an elk in the night. The light breeze of Time chilling my back. These tumultuous, but strangely creative times, pregnant with an uncertain future — that I must pick up my pen again, and write with more fervor than ever.

For I have wet my toes in the starlit lake and felt the cool crisp water reflecting a full moon’s gaze… And I now crave to slip below the surface and tumble in the mystery of midnight waters. Probably naked. Probably both scared for my life and exhilarated.

So I dive.

And I will start by publishing articles weekly, vs. monthly. (or bi-annually, ha!)

While this seems like a big leap in my mind, it’s not in my heart. It feels necessary, and expansive, and fun. Like a thoroughfare to a new time in my life.

I’m sharing my new goal with you to give myself some public accountability, and also to invite you to swim along with me.

If you’d like to receive my new weekly writings (or a monthly round-up) on creativity, life, love, and laughter, then I invite you to sign up for my newsletter here.

If you’re already a subscriber and would like to switch to receiving articles weekly (instead of monthly), simply update your preferences at the bottom of any of my emails.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for following along with this journey of mine, in any way that you do. It means the world to me that you take the time to look at my art and read my words. That my truth is heard by you, and that sometimes, it makes a difference.

Much Love,

PS. I’d also like to send a special thank you to the women artists around me who’s passion, drive, and creativity inspired me to take this dive:

OG Mama Wildling and my first writing friend(!): Devon Loftus
Accountability Partner and all the crystals and kittens: Lisa Ellefson
Makes my heart squishy wide open: Cortney Kelley
Giggles and flowers and hugs: Carissa Dickson and Iana Franks
Dream-chaser, joy-seeker, and entrepreneur extraordinaire: Kristina Wunsch
And my go-to going crazy relief and passion-chaser: Holly Anderson

You guys are stars. Thank you for having the bravery to follow your dreams and do the work in your hearts. It gives me strength, inspiration, and all the warm and fuzzies to call you my friends.