Holding It Back

For most of my life, I’ve written prolifically. That includes writing stories throughout elementary school, journaling in middle school, and drafting about a novel per year through high school and my first year of college (not to mention a lot of bad poetry, most of it of the love persuasion). I wrote short stories and more poems through college and started a daily fictional blog shortly after graduation that ran for two and a half years. The A Cappella Blog, wrestling columns, freelance work, and a butt load of fiction, poetry, and essays would follow. And this blog.

This blog has now eclipsed 250 posts. It’s another milestone and, lest this all sound like a set up for some grand farewell, rest assured the blog isn't go anywhere just yet. Nor I do I mean to brag--because though I’m proud of the volume of my work and the consistency of my practice, I’d never suggest quantity trumps quality in any artistic endeavor.

I did get to thinking about quantity of ideas, though. I recall points earlier in my writing life when I feared running out of them--writing down what came to me compulsively and trying to hold back on using material one place for fear of not having material left afterward. Indeed, most writers I know will claim to have experienced writer’s block, at least on occasion.

But particularly in the context of this blog, I recall the Flannery O’Connor wisdom that anyone who survived childhood had enough material to write about for a lifetime.

I remember one of my most trusted mentors, Harvey Grossinger, balking at writer’s block as a myth that one need only read good literature for an hour or two get the better of.

I recall a time when my wife off-handedly ask if I ever watch people in public and imagine what their lives might be like and that I couldn’t help but laugh because, of course, that’s what I do most every day; the good musings make it out on the page.

And so it is that I came to a different outlook. There’s no shortage of ideas and not every story has been written. Quite the opposite: a balance of reflection, imagination, reading other stories (both literally and metaphorically) and keeping an open mind means the well of ideas won’t run dry.

There’s no need to hold back.