On Writing, or lack thereof

There is a certain silent sadness to the lack of writing.

Now, don't get me wrong. There was a lot of writing in my life this year. Essays, blog posts, journal entries - a lot of nonfiction.

But there is a comfort to fiction that cannot be achieved with such safe material.

Fiction is dangerous. It feels terrifying because creating is terrifying. It is a jump into the unknown, where there may be a safety net or a concrete sidewalk in the thick darkness. If it doesn't work, it hurts. But that analogy is a poor one, since writing fiction will certainly not kill you.

Fiction requires a certain freedom to the mind, a lack of preoccupation. My brain, when fuzzy with obligation, does not want to write fiction. In that case, my brain just wants to sleep. Or look at adorable cat gifs. Or just stare at the ceiling for a while.

Suddenly, I'm out of school and I can write again. This year, I began to doubt whether or not I was actually a writer. But I suppose, in a way, that being a writer is not a question of writing every single day on schedule. Being a writer is a matter of coming back to it. Of needing to come back to it. Of having the ideas curl into smoky rings of vapor until they condense into liquid and can no longer be contained. That is writing. It is a difficult love, but a fruitful one.

This July I venture into Camp NaNoWriMo, land of 1613 words each day and insanity. I'm excited and terrified. And hopefully, in August, I'll have a novel to edit.

The silent sadness is over, if only temporarily.

I am a bad girl, me

So I went to ceramics, which was awesome. I painted a teacup I made with white and copper-green slip and I'm going to glaze it tomorrow.

Of course, since I wasn't throwing today (only trimming and painting and sitting around because I didn't make enough stuff this week to keep myself occupied), I, as well as my wheel, was much less dirty. So I cleaned up my stuff and then my friends and I basically ditched the class. (Oh well...the classroom was pretty clean anyways...)

We were upstairs and my friend and I were unlocking my bike from the railing by the door and another one was sitting on the railing and then my friend asked me to come get ice cream with her. At first I said no, I shouldn't, I should get home, because my grandparents will be expecting me (my parents are in the Berkshires). But then we started riding and I thought, what the hell, why not, ice cream is amazing.

So we went to Cabot's and each got an American small-size (which of course is medium to large size everywhere else) and stood around finishing them off. By then it was around six, and class had ended at 5:30.

Of course, I was expected to be a little late because I had to pick up a book at the library, but not as late as I was going to be now.

But anyway, she agreed to stop by the library with me. As we leaned our bikes on the bike-tying things (but didn't lock them because it's tedious) I called my grandparents and said that I'd had to stick around and help clean. Which was basically the opposite of what had happened. But whatever.

I checked out my request (The Night Circus, for anyone who cares) and another book that I saw that looked cool and I decided to check out (and I still have no idea what it is) and then we kept riding towards home. We take the back streets, since I hate one of the intersections on the way. Suddenly I noticed that in front of one house, the part between the sidewalk (or "pavement" if you're British) and the road, where usually there's water-wasting grass that the city maintains, someone had planted tomatoes.

Of course, we stopped and stole some. (To be fair, I think it's city property anyway, so whatever.) They were good. Literally just-picked. Nothing like it.

Soon we got to my driveway and we went our separate ways.

And this is why I relish my freedom.