At the South Country Fair I saw a lot of very talented performers and poets. I wanted to take in everything they said and just appreciate all the hard work they put into their creations. But at the back of my mind--who am I kidding? It was continuously in the foreground of my thoughts--I wish I could write something that good. It was thrilling and inspiring to be around all these artists, and simultaneously depressing as hell. I started to tear up at one point today. Not because the poetry was beautiful I'm sorry to say. It was, I'll have you know, but I was so selfish and self-judging that I couldn't shake these thoughts off. I couldn't hear a whole lot beyond what was going on in the space between my ears.

I do think that I have talent as a writer, and what I'm concerned about won't always be what I'm concerned about. But I haven't really written anything in a few months now, and I'd like to express how that feels, and I'm sure most of you can relate. I don't think I write because I think I'm any good as a writer. If I am any good, it's purely incidental, the bonus all writers hope for. I write however, because it is a kind of salvation for me. Call that extreme, but it's true. If I don't write for a long period it depresses me, of course, because like anyone it makes me doubt if I have anything left in me, which is terrible enough as it is. It's one of the few ways I can actually make sense of my own thoughts, and with any luck, one of the few ways people can actually understand me. I haven't been writing as much as I'd like to, which both a cause of the problem and a result. And because I so seldom show what I do write, I feel like there's a lot about me that the people in my life, the ones I love, don't know about. Literally. This includes my family. There's a lot they don't know about me. Not so much what I do with my time, but what's in my head. I've spent most of my life in my head. Believe me, I'm trying really hard to break out. Especially with my family. But it's not easy. So I write. It's one of the few ways I can actually make sense. Again, I don't write purely because it's something I want to get good at and be recognised for. My motives run deeper than that. I write to survive. To keep myself from becoming a total stranger to my loved ones, and myself. I don't think I've ever explained the things I feel most passionate about without stumbling over words, stuttering, falling into habitual mindless "uh's" "um's" and "like" and worst of all, forgetting my point. Writing reduces the chances of me making an ass of myself. Writing is also incredibly hard for me. It's easy to come up with a great little turn of phrase or combination of words. But to give them homes, in stories, poetry, any kind of context, is daunting, and exhausting. For me, the discipline it takes to sustain any sort of piece into a fully fleshed story, is nothing less than an act of courage. Yet I continually do not write, even though the alternative is far worse, even though characters and ideas and landscapes possess me and I can't help but obsess over them until they're recorded, and until then I stay in my head, and I get very irritable when people unknowingly take me away from my thoughts. It's not fair to those around me, and people always wonder why I'm so cranky. I continually do not write and it murders me. So if nothing else, consider this rant a plea for sanity, from myself, to myself.