put one foot in front of the other

I stopped writing. Abruptly screeched to a halt something that had become meaningful and personal and enriching and sustaining.

I only started writing on a regular basis about a month or so before Flow, my last book was published. More than once I'd been asked what my writing practice was and I was ashamed to admit I didn't have one.

I felt like a phony. In spite of this big book, my dream project, about to hit shelves everywhere, I didn't consider myself a writer.

So I started writing. I set myself up with a 40 day challenge and it was hard. I'd grapple with ideas, struggle with sentences, debate whether or not I should it the publish button on this blog.

Was anything I had to say worth it? Would anyone care? Would people realize I was faking this author thing and call me out on it?

But I kept writing.

I wrote the experience of sending a dream project out into the world. The thrill, the excitement, the despair, the crushed hopes, the frustration of it not doing well, the yearning it would do better.

As that came to a close I was lost about what next. But I kept writing, often about just that.

Then I donated a kidney and my subject matter and reason for being melded again. I had purpose and substance and meaning.

I wrote that journey from even before I knew it was starting through the months and months of anxiety and joy and endless unknowns.

After that I froze. I was healing. My brother was doing great. But I couldn't write anymore.

I couldn't feel.

I couldn't create.

I couldn't breathe.

I was petrified at the most basic of levels and didn't know how to get out.

But I'm feeling that perhaps in all that time writing had become a lifeline and I'd been denying myself a vital outlet. That expression is necessary. That even when no else one is listening, it's important to hear yourself.

So I'm starting at the very beginning. One step at a time. 40 days of putting words down, of thinking, of feeling, of crying, of creating. And then who knows.