Letting The Words Out

I've had my blog for eight years now.  It started as a diary of sorts and over the years it has worn a variety of hats on different subjects.  It helped to fuel my body positive journey, it forced me out of black clothes into colour; it let loose my imagination and freed the words that were always in my head, but never came out.  It fueled me to write my opinion pieces and later, for the past couple of years, it has given me an out of hours income aside of my full time job.

The problem is that when you start to write commercially, when you focus your spare time on writing for someone other than yourself; the words that always flowed so freely before are forced into a particular mindset and your thoughts are pushed to one side.

Although I will still have my commercial side, although to a smaller aspect now, I want to really write again.  I want to rant again.  I want to share the thoughts that somehow come out so freely on my blog, especially when I wouldn't say them out loud.  I want to talk about current affairs, the silly things that enter my mind and talk about the parts of my soul that only come out when I write, unedited.

Right now, I am barely blogging.  I have fallen out of the habit of opening up my laptop every night.  Blog ideas that I used to jot down during the day don't appear.  I used to be able to come up with a subject and practically have the post drafted in my head by the time I got home.  Not now.

The thing is, I remember how much I love writing here, as soon as I start to type.  As I write this post now, the smile appears on my face and parts of my brain wake up again. 

There certainly isn't a shortage of things to talk about in current climes! I recently did a post about non platforming which got my brain juices flowing again. 

I think the answer to my non writing period is that I need to get back into the saddle properly.  I need to write, every day, about something.  Not necessarily a full blog post piece, sometimes just a paragraph.  About anything.

I need to be excited about writing again because I can't put aside something that I love to do just because life gets in the way.  So hopefully, there will be many more posts to come.

Just Keep Swimming

I am looking at you, the vast white blank space that is my new draft post.  You entice, making me want to fill you up with words, my thoughts on display, my feelings on show.

(Jesus, that sounded a lot more filthy than I meant it to come out.  But hey, the intention here is to get me writing again, so I will allow it, this once)

I can see the words that I want to type, dancing just behind this vast white screen.  The many topics I want to speak about, suddenly disappear the moment I open my laptop.

It used to be so easy.  I used to post 2, 3, 4 times a week sometimes.  With ease.  I could bang out an opinion piece in a few hours, the thoughts formulating in my head as I went through my day, pouring out of me when I got to my laptop at night.  

Do I have less opinions these days?  Hell no.  Probably more.  Am I less passionate than I used to be?  Definately not.  But the words, they still do not come.  Irritatingly, if I am given a subject, a starting point; I am fine.  The words flow easily like they did before.

Ironically. this post that I am writing to you now is flowing.  The words are here, within my grasp.  The thoughts come together.  This means that I still have it in me, but the dots are not connecting.  Is this writer's block?

I think what I am lacking is focus.  My work life is insane at the moment, my head is still coming out of the loss of my step dad and my beautiful little dog child, Ellie.  My anxiety has spiralled and I feel like I am constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. It has been a really shitty couple of years, but I feel ready, more than ready to clear the head space and become me once more.

I re-read a post that I wrote for the Huffington Post in 2014 this week. Mirror, Mirror On the Wall and it made me remember the love that I had for writing.  The passion that I felt about body confidence, about reminding people that we are more than just our bodies; that is ok to look at yourself in the mirror and like your reflection.

I have tried everything to reignite my writing bug.  It is still there, in force, but still under the surface where I cannot yet reach.  I need my focus back.  I need to clear my head of what has gone on before and just write.  I need the Twitter me to expand and jump on to my blog page.

via GIPHY

I think that I am just doing to channel Dory.  Instead of keeping swimming, I am just going to keep writing.  Not focus on a subject, just write.  Lord knows what you will be reading, but I feel that it is the only way to bring myself back.

I will try and throw some interesting pieces in between the journey of self reflection.  But I ask that you bear with me in the transition.  It is time for the gobby opinion to make a return to The Curved Opinion.