Lessons

I’m learning so much from the poetry workshop I’m taking.(http://wow-womenonwriting.com/) Many of the lessons I know, but a refresher never hurts anyone, especially me—now. Many lessons are about detail and going deeper into my emotions. Some lessons are about discipline which I’ve always had in good supply (sometimes too much. I tend to lower my head and keep going when I should let it go) and how to not allow myself to be overwhelmed.

As most know who read Windfalls for Writers regularly, I’ve spent the last year and a half struggling to recover from MPGN, a rare kidney disease. It isn’t curable, but hopefully manageable. I would just as soon never feel like I did last year, so I take my health seriously. But I’ve also found how important my writing is to my health (mental health and happiness).

I think one of the lowest points last year was when I finally started feeling up to sitting at my desk and I couldn’t seem to put one word in front of the other on the page. Sometimes I would find myself face down on the desk, drool pooling under my cheek and the whole morning gone. I felt lost and I suppose I was. After all, what is a writer who can’t write?

A million terrific ideas traveled through my head. Couldn’t seem to catch a one on paper, but this blog isn’t about-oh, poor sick me. It’s about writing. And this blog is about lessons, particularly now.

Excitement in my writing has been growing for several months now and I’ve been working on a bunch of poetry. Poetry is the right vehicle for my writing right now. It makes me joyful.

And—my roots are in poetry as I’ve said before. Like a loyal, childhood friend, I’ve written poetry during the most emotional times of my life and abandoned it, too, for a while, but always I come back to it. Coming back seems right, right now, like coming home. I needed that comfort, but also I needed the stretching, the concentration.

For years I’d wanted to take some classes in poetry writing. I’m starting small and carefully because I’m not supposed to get overwhelmed. This workshop doesn’t get all the credit, but a lot. It’s given me a finish line, a goal. I push myself a bit more to do better because I have an instructor reading my efforts, giving me immediate, constructive comments.

So what I’m I learning? To write that first draft with wild abandon. Bungee-jump into the brine-don’t even hold your nose. Just jump right in. Then chop, cut, rewrite. Painful, but not as painful as not writing. There’s always another chance at making our work better.

I’ve learned to never take anything for granted and enjoy the things I love more. I’ve learned that writing isn’t everything. Many things are more important. Like family and friends and health. I don’t intend to forget that. But—writing is a part of me. So I’m learning how to prioritize.

Funny—in all that learning, in all the struggle to get better, to find my joy, to find what was important to me—never once did getting published come up. Imagine that.