A Breath, a Break

I’ve slowed down. I’m typing a few lines this morning, with vague direction. I’ve written little this last week–a few brief edits to a short story, an idle look at upcoming submissions windows. What do I have today that I can blog about? Perhaps only that very hitch in my routine: the slowing down, the searching. I’ll keep it brief today.

Life plans are rearranging. I had planned to send out MFA applications this fall. Between the uncertainty of coronavirus and evolving plans for building a family, it’s looking like that won’t be happening this year. I recognize that a lot of the writing I’ve been doing has had the urgency of this impending fall under its pants. Now that plans are changing, suddenly urgency’s died back. And perhaps it has something to do too with having that first publication, small and strange as it is, that I have reached a goal, and now I’m resting a bit more.

*The nearest sizable city is about an hour’s drive away from us. We made our first trip there since, I think, February. The sun started creeping out on our drive back.*

Although I can’t help worrying I’ll lose my focus, that this lull will continue like the inverse of that dread coronavirus curve, I’ll try to look at it as a rejuvenating rest. I’ll try to make it that, by still devoting time to writing, reading, and submitting. I am reorienting, remapping goals, and perhaps that will affect the writing projects I choose to devote myself to in the coming months. I’m not sure where I’ll head.

It’s a good moment too to remind myself just why I’m doing this. To take a breath, ask then, why is writing important to me? Why am I devoting time and care? Luckily, I have that answer: for me, it has become a dialogue with life. I throw my thoughts out into the heart of my experience, dig around a bit, rummage in my mind’s back corners. I build a few things, tie them up as pretty as I can. I send them out, and perhaps someone will publish them. That’s not so bad for a spiritual experience, I suppose. For some approaching if I can to bits of truth. That is a good reminder for myself.