Face the Darkness

It's starting to creep in, that darkness, sliding into my poems. It wants to be heard and as much as I don't want to allow it in, I'm opening myself up to it. It hurts, it's hurtful. I'm not sure if it's helping yet, but maybe it will in the long run. 

I know if I hold it in, try to resist it will build up and hurt more. It's a fine line to tread. I'm not sharing my work with those it affects, just the anonymous people on my online course. It feels a bit like letting go of a held breath, just a moment's release of tension.

My poetry course has finished and while I've found it hard to keep up with all that's going on, it has been good for me and for my writing. An external focus, a way to keep moving forward. I still have a few prompts I haven't written anything for, so I'll try and catch up with those over the next week or so. Or let them simmer in the background to see if anything comes of them in the future. Wendy Pratt is offering another course in October on autumn and aging, so I will probably sign up for that as well.

I do need to get back into my fiction. But to be honest I have no enthusiasm for it right now. I took the next section to my writing group and got decent feedback that gives me some direction with which to edit it, but I have set it aside. Usually I come back from the group and start working on it right away. I'll look at it again during the week when the house is quiet.

There's no rush and no need to beat myself up if I just want to leave it, do the bare minimum to keep taking chapters to my group, but to focus on poetry for the most part. Sometimes it's useful to have several projects on the go, if you go off the boil with one you can pick up another.

So I'm treading soft, allowing the writing to take me where I want to go. It's scary, but also feels very grown-up, trusting myself and my art.