March 28, 2014 by Amy

shift freedom

I decided recently that I’m not writing enough. Or, to be more accurate, that I’m not writing at all.

It starts off slow, the falling away. Things get busy and other priorities upshift and those squirrely things that one does just to make one feel better get downshifted. I turned to Instagram to keep a finger in the photography pie, but writing seems to have simply burned in the oven.

I used to write a lot. I used to write here a lot. Or at least regularly. Then, for awhile, I was writing a lot but only for work. Articles and profiles and features. At least I was penning something, flexing whatever creative muscle is used to write.

Then that even went away when I hired my assistant and started farming out the fun writing assignments to him. There were multiple thoughts behind this decision:

1. He’s a creative guy and I want him to feel fulfilled and happy.
2. He’s good at it, so it takes a tremendous amount of work off my plate because I can totally trust him.
3. I needed to get rid of some of my daily grind tasks to focus more on management stuff. Which, it appears, involves a lot of paper pushing, ego soothing, and hounding people to get us information. In other words, daily grind tasks that are infinitely less fun.

Let’s just say my assistant got the better end of this deal. I’ve got half a mind to promote him to my position and demote myself to his. (If I could keep my salary, I’d do it in a heartbeat.)

When I stayed with my friend in Colorado a couple weeks ago, my guest room was outfitted with shelves and shelves of books. There was also a wire basket near my bed that was stuffed full of writers’ magazines. The covers called out with headlines about kickstarting creativity and finding new ways of writing and how important it is to write every day. For three days those magazines indicted me, and I was guilty of their charge. Where did my writing go?

I need to write. It’s like my need to photograph. I’m not happy if I’m not doing it. And I haven’t been doing it.

Here’s the thing. I decided that I’d just go back to writing and it’d be like the many, many times I’ve returned to photography. It’s like riding a bike; you never forget. But while I feel like I can write decently, I am definitely rusty. There’s no blood going to it yet, there’s no real sense of satisfaction after finishing a post. I think I need to do some warm-up stretches. Ease back into it. Not attempt to write a marathon after sitting on my ass brain for months. (Years?) I gotta cut myself some slack, I guess, although it’s incredibly frustrating to not be able to sit down and just barf all over the page as M so eloquently puts it.

Hopefully I’ll get there again. In the meantime, the five of you still reading this thing are just gonna have to be patient. I’m creaky, but I’m coming back. It’s just a matter of shifting my freedom, right? Write.

#writing