Write the Rain

Writing takes me a long time. The ideas are there, and getting a first draft down is easy breezy. But then I absolutely agonize over the finished draft – the thing I share. I get bogged down in making what I write juuuuuuuuust the way I want it – in other words, perfect. What if they are terrible? What if they offend someone? What if no one likes them? OR, what if there’s another way to go about it?

I’ve been listening to and reading about creativity and how to nourish it. And I think I have an idea for how to keep the perfectionist who lives inside me, at bay. 

I’m going to write and share one observation each day-ish. It will be something that sparks my fascination, or captures my fancy, or something I’m wrestling with. I’m going to give myself permission for it to be horrible. There’s gonna be some stinkers in there, for sure. And this will be good practice at not being too precious about all that. Wow, that already feels scary. 

I’m hoping this will help loosen me up. To make it fun. Perhaps to even make it easy? Wow, that would be such a kick, eh? 

 So to start this off, here’s the first thing I wrote. It is what convinced me that this experiment might be a good idea.

I’ll set the scene for you…

The other night I woke just after midnight to the heavy rain falling and words dancing around in my head. I decided to get out of bed and write them down. I wrote easily, straight down the page, no stopping to go back and check what was above to figure out what came next. This is NOT my usual way of writing! And, as I wrote, the sound of the rain raged! But when the words stopped flowing, magically, the rain stopped. I was only awake for about 30 minutes. It felt pretty damn special. Here’s what poured out of me.