The Purge

The purge is coming.

No, not that one. I know Halloween is right around the corner, but not everything needs to be all "murder-y", mmkay?

I mean the emotional and mental purge that comes with writing. Any writer can attest to the transformative benefits of leaving it all on the page, of taking your swirling torrent of thoughts and feelings and putting them down in some form, whether it is sensical or not. Some of my best writing, my most honest words, have taken place when I wasn't trying to get it right; I was just trying to get it out.

2014 was a banner year of suckitude for me. 2015 didn't start out any better. But what got me through, what kept my sanity (largely) intact, was writing. I poured my heart out. In blog posts, freelance work, and my personal WIPs, I laid my soul bare. Made an emotional mess and then came back later to reassess and clean it up. And it worked.

2016 has, thus far, been a fantastic year. A few struggles here and there, and stress like you wouldn't believe, but overall a year of growth and love and happiness and gratitude. Yet my anxiety has run amok. Why? Because I haven't been writing as much. I haven't maintained the purge.

Over the course of rediscovering the badass woman I am and making my life what I want it to be, I allowed myself to become too busy for writing. I have a tendency to make everyone else my priority, to make sure everything else is taken care of first. There's always something to do, something to attend to, another set of adulting to accomplish. (The curse of an overly-nice, overly-responsible, Type A first-born, perhaps? Also, procrastinator. But who's counting?)

Anyhoo, after several conversations with my besties, and a few emotional breakdowns to my amazing, long-suffering, and ever-supportive man, I'm taking back the reins on my writing. It's the only way I feel complete, the only way I feel truly centered. Yoga is great. Tea is fantastic. But only writing, only the act of unceremoniously dumping words on a page (and then cursing myself during the editing process) gets me to the mental and emotional zen space I crave.

This blog is only one facet of this. It keeps me focused on the larger task at hand. I currently have two works in progress going. One, a YA dystopian novel that, ironically, plays right into our current political cycle. The other, a contemporary chick lit romance with lots of bad words and dry, sarcastic assessments of life in your 30s. I also have four more novels started, and about ten bouncing around in my head for later. Plenty of fodder for keeping myself busy and utilizing the creative outlet at which I am best.

So like I said. The purge is coming.

No, still not that one. Weirdos.