Courage in Writing

 I have fantastic new stationary. And this morning, I’ve started writing letters again. I love the process of writing letters, but like most of my writing, I have trouble actually sending them off. There is always that moment after finishing when I sit down, reread what I’ve written and think ‘oh no, I really can’t send this off. I need to rewrite everything!” I don’t complete things well. I’m always thinking of new and better revisions. I am like Oscar Wilde, working all morning to take a comma, and all afternoon at putting it in again. But beautiful paper, nice pens and dark, refreshed typewriter ink are helpful. Sensory things like that make me write better and with more confidence than I would otherwise. My poor husband is always complaining that I steal his art pens and use them up making lists and writing journal entries, or letters that will never be sent.

I’m trying to be more ‘daring’ in my writing. Not that my writing is dull, but I’m not daring in that I don’t like to finish. I like to edit and re-edit, I like to loose papers and leave things undone so that they remain safe potentialities..not grown and gone and away from my loving neglect. So I have hastily written letters to send off to friends and family who will (hopefully) not judge them harshly, and poems that will be done enough for editing by others by the end of the week piled on my desk. I’m being reckless with my words, and enjoying it, for the moment.