I forgot who I was doing this for.

I forgot about the girl who loves the words, the ones that sing, that stumble awkwardly, that trip and fall and sometimes catch themselves in time to make it look intentional.

I forgot that there is no hidden agenda. No ultimate desire to create something beyond the something being created. That is to say, my intention for this space of verbosity does not have an endgame. Evolution has no endgame. There is no point where I will stand from this desk and say, “I have a arrived! I am a writer!” and rest my literal ass on my figurative laurels with contentment.

I forgot about the love of the loquacious, the propensity for the prose, the fondness of the flow, the wild eyed delight of the word written well, the appeal of alliteration.

I forgot that I don’t need to be anything in particular. My penchant this week for writing ramblings of an erotic nature does not preclude my proclivity for poetry. And, to be fair, there is a plethora of poetry in a fuck done well.

I get so caught up in the this or the that, it sometimes makes me forget I encompass the all.

So here it is, day one of a new 30 day write yourself alive writing challenge that started well over a month ago. I wasn’t ready to do it before today. Why? Because of the words.

I forgot to not get hung up on the way something is worded for it to have resonance with me.
The first challenge? What is standing in the way of your creative revolution?

I’ve struggled with the answer to that since August first, when the challenge started. “well, it’s obviously me. not making time for this thing that I should have found a way to make a viable endeavour by now. Is that what I want? Do I want to be a published author at some point? Is that my goal? Do I write things worth publishing? I don’t even know if that’s what I want! Should it be? But I barely show up, that’s obviously what’s in the way. Plus I give in to the voices that tell me I have time, that I can do it later, that I can spend another while reading someone else’s genius, rather than acknowledging my own. Because how arrogant is it to insist that I’m in a category similar to these other writers?”

It’s not fucking arrogant at all if it’s true.
And it’s true.

We all have things that we’re good at. I suck at being a responsible parent. Why? Because it’s not something I do. If I did it? I wouldn’t suck at it. It’s the same with writing. I’m a way better writer than I am a parent because I do it way more often. And if I did it as frequently as a mom or dad parents someone? I’d be a fucking genius at it. Every day, go hard, don’t turn it off because you don’t have a choice. That’s not to say that I won’t have days where I’m a shitty writer, just like parents won’t have days where selling children to gypsies feels like a viable option. (How did that start? Are gypsies really in the habit of buying children? I was always hopeful when I heard that, nothing ever came of it though…) but it’s the showing up, the goddamn I have to leave this bed WHY? ok, fine! and doing so. But I was trying to reconcile aspects of myself I found lacking and trying to plan a creative revolution to unseat them and perhaps chop their heads off and dance in the streets while burning the bastille.

But that would suggest there are aspects of me that need to go. That need to be usurped and deposed and done away with. And that wasn’t sitting well with me. And one day I suddenly thought, how different would this feel if I dropped an R?

What is standing in the way of my Creative Evolution?

Instead of revolting and railing against the old guard, the habits that have grown complacent and out of touch, how can I fold all of these traits into this personal pastry I’m in the middle of baking and turn it into some damn fine all of the things pie?

I don’t deny that there are habits I’ve outgrown. I don’t pretend that there aren’t patterns that need work. But to demand of myself that I sunder them, cast them aside and forge a new, stronger personality from the ashes of my former self seems slightly more brutal than I’m inclined to do.

Now I know that there will be those who would see a revolution as the best possible scenario. And that’s great. But I’ve come to understand that for me, the best perspective is one of evolution. Tearing down the old makes way for the new, but in doing so, many of the lessons that could have been learned are lost. Of course I grasp the benefit of phoenix from the inferno, new growth after a forest fire mentality, but that doesn’t suggest a revolution to me. It’s nature.

And, being that it’s natural for seasons to change, and things to start anew, here I am in my writey place at day one.

What’s standing in the way of my creative evolution?

Nothing.