Letters to November 02.11.14

Dear November,

I'm surprised myself that I'm writing to you for the second day in a row.  I did as I promised and started NaNoWriMo yesterday.  In the process, I started clearing through the documents and pictures I had saved on my computer desktop.  I've been struggling with writing for months now and it annoyed me a little to find that I had three possible blogs, sat on my desktop.  2 of them, I even finished and just haven’t posted. 

My new chair in my disorganised work room. 

When I talk to people about my writing, I tell them that I struggle to find the words for what I want to say.  I realised yesterday that it isn't true.  My struggle is believing I haven’t found the right words for what I want to say.  The difference is massive.  The difference is a dictionary to a thesaurus.  If I pick the wrong words, I can go back and change them later – that’s why editing exists.  I've been living in a state of “Bad Faith” about my writing.  It won’t get me writing to declare that I have nothing to say, especially when it isn't true. 

Worst of all, November, writing – no matter if it’s my blog, a poem, a short story – it helps me.  I feel more like myself when I'm doing it.  So why avoid it?  Why not do something that makes me happy?  I won’t be happy with the quality every single time, but find me any sort of artist that is always 100% happy with everything they put out in to the world.  Surely it’s the act of doing it that matters?  To create?  To make something new?

November, pessimists would have me believe that everything has been said before.  There are only seven basic story lines that exist in all of writing.  How many times can we re-hear the same stories over and over again before we get bored of them?  I don’t want people to read anything of mine and be bored of it.  But I realised something else today.   Even if I do tell the same story that someone else had told, it will be my way of telling it.  I’ll show them something else, or at least I hope to.  I’ll give them something else to see, or at least I hope to.

Hope.  Such a fickle thing.

I have a new chair to sit and write in.  Hopefully, I’ll be encouraged to write at my desk, where I’m more productive now I have something very comfy to sit on.  I've enclosed a picture for you.

I hope your month is going well.