Writing into the Darkness

This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

It’s almost 1 AM now and I’m still awake. Despite having morning class tomorrow and knowing that being up this late is going to make me super tired for my favorite class. This isn’t the first night this week I ended up late. Why? I’ve been asking myself that very same question and so far I don’t really have an answer.

Things aren’t particularly bad right now even if I do have a tone of work from school. With just three weeks left of classes, plus one week of finals, things are getting pretty intense. The two literature classes that were manageable all semester have become a bit overwhelming. Yet really it’s just a lot of reading. Nothing I’m not used to in the end. Except I’m having trouble sitting down and doing it. I’m distracted and I have trouble concentrating.

Dead Wesley Smith talks about writing into the dark on his blog. It’s the phrase he uses to describe writing when you have no plan, no plot, and no idea what you’re going to write about. You just start writing and go. I really like this idea and I’ve been itching to try it. Then I realized that’s pretty much what I always do with my blog entries. I don’t have a plan. Sometimes I have a thought and that’s my starting point. One little thought. Tonight my thoughts are rioting among the streets and alleyways of my mind and it’s making me crazy.

I’m sad and depressed, yet hopeful and determined. Mixed feelings describes it well. Then there’s the fear. The nagging, little voice in the back of my head fear that this is all going to come crashing down and I’m just a stupid little idiot for every thinking I could pull off writing for a living.

A poem written about fear and anxiety. By Aaron Lowe
A poem written about fear and anxiety.
By Aaron Lowe
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2 thoughts on “Writing into the Darkness”

  1. Thank you for this. There are many flowery ways to describe what you do and how it affects those who read what you share. I’m not the one to write all of those. I’ll just say thank you, and hope that you understand the plea inherent in those words that you keep sharing your life with us. Keep giving us glimpses into our own minds through your experiences. Keep expressing thoughts that we never had the words for. Thank you.

    1. I’m going to keep on keeping on. Sometimes I just need to get the not so nice stuff out of my head and into a more coherent form so it stops driving me nuts. I managed to get right to sleep after this one. 🙂

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