Struggling to imagine that I have new thoughts worthy of being put on paper. I’m always crafting earth-shattering descriptions and paragraphs and essays in my head. The light will pass through the window and hit a butter knife in the drying rack on the kitchen counter and I will describe how the afternoon glare is soft and buttery yet sharp like only a ray of sunshine cutting through winter chill can be. I think to myself that it is a beautiful description, that I should write it down, but then I scold myself. It’s not like I’m the only one who sees a sunbeam and thinks to describe it in writing, in a poem. It is paralyzing. Being a writer and never writing anything down.
I think I’m stuck on making it new. I always think of Ezra Pound driving home that writers shouldn’t write anything unless it is new. Although, when looking deeper into his motto, it seems like it wasn’t a “new” idea at all...https://www.guernicamag.com/the-making-of-making-it-new/
But there is something to be said that the writing world is so saturated. There’s so much, too much, of everything. Too much noise, too much content, too many voices. Why would I add to that?
I write every day. But it’s about garage doors. It’s PRs for off-road races. It’s copy for cannabis websites.
There’s also a level of exposure with writing. This has always been the case, but it’s accentuated now with our hyper-connected globe. Either your writing is lost in a sea of voices, or people connect with it and it explodes.
I guess it all comes down to fear, though. And I keep hearing about how you miss the shots you don’t take…
