NO MORE

I’d forgotten what it was like to write just for the sake of writing. I’ve been fighting to write what other folks want from me and then feeling frustrated because I haven’t been able to write at all. I’ve known since I was a little girl that writing was my passion. It was the one thing I could do and do well and be completely fulfilled doing. It never mattered to me if I made money doing it. I just wanted to tell a good story and have whoever read it be moved by my words. I wanted to take others to the places I traveled to in my mind, to share that part of myself that people might not have been able to see. Writing elevated me above the mundane routines of everyday life and when a story came, when I could twist it and spin it until it was just right, I was in my glory. When I focused on the words rambling in my head and the voices crying out for my attention, there was no challenge I could not conquer, nothing that could ever best me.

And then I found myself writing what other people wanted, trying to fulfill other folk’s expectations, and more times than not, the words failed me.

I can’t do it anymore. I can’t do light and fluffy. Life isn’t like that and no matter how hard I try I can’t get to the happy ending without letting life do what it does naturally. It needs to throw me and my characters a curve or two. It needs to be difficult and complicated and sometimes downright messy and nasty. It can’t always be pretty because life isn’t like that. Sometimes it has to hurt so deeply that I question whether or not I can rise above it and then I do. That’s what I need to write. Those are the words spinning out of control for my attention. I am desperate to write for the sake of writing because I’m still passionate about the beauty of words and the tales they can tell. I don’t want to stop being passionate about what I love to do.

I’ve decided to let other’s do fluffy. I just can’t do it anymore.