writing with the muse...

I started writing when I was young.  Just a child.

I almost think I  learned to read so that I would have the power to put pen to page and make words of my own.

I wrote little poems, short short stories, bits of prose.

They all had one thing in common.  One theme if you will...

they were miserable, dramatic, depressed, angst ridden.

I wrote at my darkest most miserable moments.  Everything that poured from my heart and my mind was dark.  It caused problems more than once when my words were discovered by someone who didn't know where I was coming from, someone who didn't know me.

I tried and tired to write something beautiful and light, something inspiring and joyous.  It wasn't to be.  I wrote dark words, beautiful, but dark, until I was 22 years old.

Then I stopped.

What happened?

I'm honestly not terribly sure.  Something snapped and I was no longer enamored with my dark images, my bloody words, my written sorrow.  I wasn't depressed, I wasn't miserable, I wasn't tormented.

I wasn't happy either.

When the words didn't come readily.  When they brought me no relief.  No comfort... I stopped.

Years passed.

and I didn't write.  and I didn't create.  and I didn't feel that intense connection between me and the page.

At some point it broke my heart, but what was a dark hearted goth writing girl to do when her muse, whether melancholy or treacherous, wouldn't come.

Nothing.  I was to do nothing.

I made art.  I took photos.  I thought that if I could create something that was... beautiful, dark, light, bright, airy, starry, horrific or charming I would be inspired to to say something.  To write something.

To be me.

Alas and alack, that was not to be either.

So how did I get to where I am now?

Writing everyday?  Pouring my heart mind and insanity out to anyone who'll happen by?  Editing a novel?

I realized one day that what once gave me so much inspiration, so much dark bliss, the macabre that used to bring me so much material to work from, was no longer a meaningful part of my life.

I was a woman, not a girl.  I was in a happy marriage, not an angsty unstable relationship.  I had a beautiful little girl, not a pet rat named Redd.  My days were filled with family, and though I found challenges in my life, they were not the same ones I faced in earlier times.

I realized that in order to write I had to know who I was, who I had become, who I wanted to be or my literary voice would be silenced.

So I wrote about me.  I wrote about her.  I wrote about him.  My family.  The three of us.  I took up where I left off, with poetry.  The first piece I wrote was stupid.  The words didn't come to me easily.  They were tight and nothing flowed the way I would have it.

I realized that poetry wasn't the way to go.  It wasn't in my heart anymore.

Leaving behind the darkness wasn't enough.  I had to leave behind my preconceptions and learn to write something completely different, from a happier place...

I think it was just the change I needed, and so far I think I'm succeeding.