daily practice

I am showing up to punk the muse while feeling like I have punked it in some way. Maybe. 

Or at least that’s what I thought. 

Recently, I have been exploring the realms of my writing. My rut in creativity led me to explore different ventures in the hopes of sparking something exciting and new. Instead of strictly writing poetry or editorially, I decided I was going to try my hand at fiction. I wrote some short stories as a kid, had assignments in classes here or there, but ever since I decided to take writing seriously, I have told myself that I do not write fiction.  

This may stem from the fact that I started writing because I needed a place for my personal thoughts and feelings to take form. I felt like fiction could not be personal. I told myself that fiction could not be poetic. 

How silly.

A friend of mine got me writing dice for Christmas that aid in writing fiction, giving ideas for the type of character, the setting, the problems in their life. As I rolled the dice, seeing the different outcomes of a possible story, I started writing random things. Nothing I felt super confident about, but I was having fun with it. There was no pressure connected to these terrible stories, knowing they would never end up anywhere. 

Then, one day, I got passionate about something. I filled up a random journal with pages and pages and pages about this one idea. I started writing it, feeling really confident about the way it was going- and I still am. 

I was punking the muse, getting over my pent up writer’s block. 

And then a couple of weeks went by. And then a couple of months went by. 

I opened up this different part of my creativity, but blocked the others. While the story I am writing does feel poetic in a lot of aspects, it is not poetry. My poetry journals lay untouched and I kind of avoided writing any punk the muse articles, which was the opposite of what I was trying to do. 

I started crumbling with doubt. 

Once I start to doubt and hate on things about myself, it’s like a tumbling effect. I started to question how much time I have wasted holding myself back or how much time I have wasted focusing too much on things that maybe I am not that good at. Just some examples. 

I’m still working my way through this doubt and hate, but, at the end of the day, there are things I am understanding: 

1. 1. I do not have to be held down to one thing in life. I am allowed to fluidly adapt to wherever life and my creativity takes me. I do not have to punish myself for these changes, and I do not need to choose one or the other. It sounds so silly to even write out (because I don’t really understand why I would have a whole mental breakdown about this and I do understand how insane it sounds), but I CAN write poetry/nonfiction AND fiction. *wow* 
   2. And If I want to write poetry AND fiction (which I just determined that I want and can do), then I need to practice both. 

The Storming Bohemian, in this article, reminds us of the importance of daily practice, comparing it to working out or getting over addiction or even some religions, re-coining the term “one day at a time.” 

The past two months, I have eyed my poetry journal and not picked it up because I don’t have the “flush of inspiration” that The Storming Bohemian talks of. Not having a flush of inspiration is just an excuse to not pick up the journal. 

“My daily practice of art is an act of vision. It matters, in and of itself. It makes me an artist, regardless of what I create. The act, not just the artifact, is a matter of some substance and significance. But only if I make the commitment.” – The Storming Bohemian

Picking up that journal daily, while still practicing this newly-found excitement for fiction writing, will make me an artist. No matter what I create, even if it is ‘terrible’ or feels unworthy, it still makes me an artist and a writer.

      3. I don’t need to be perfect. Not everything I create needs to be perfect.