Writing For The Sake Of Writing

During a conversation inspired by an advert on the telly, one which probably isn't supposed to inspire the types of long-winded (and often off topic) conversations we tend to have, Matthew asked me what I thought my 'thing' was. 'I don't know' was my initial response, stumped by the certainty with which he knew what his 'thing' was.

'Well your thing is writing isn't it?' he replied.

Oh yes, writing. 

The thing is, the longest thing I've written over the past few months is probably a shopping list (which I do write out twice to be fair, once in the order that I think of things, then re-written in the order I'll come to things in the supermarket, obviously). 

I've written pretty much since I learnt to write, which sounds like a fairly obvious statement, so maybe I should explain a little. I wrote my first story before I could even write my bs and ds the right way round, I wrote my first 'book' aged 7 which my mum painstakingly typed up on the computer and printed out for me and I wrote on this blog every week pretty much religiously for a good six years. 

So why did I stop? Has writing stopped being my 'thing'? 

Well, no, in a word. I suppose a big part of it is that I simply started prioritising other life stuff and stopped prioritising writing, but I'd also stopped writing for the sake of writing; I was caught up in trying to 'offer' something to an audience (which may or may not still exist), and if I couldn't think of something insightful or helpful to write, I just wouldn't. And that's where the pleasure of writing gets a little lost and becomes something of a chore. And if it's a chore that I don't have to complete, why would I do it? 

Here's the thing though; I really miss it. I miss sitting down and tapping out the next five hundred or so words that come into my head without too much thought or editing; simply articulating what comes into my mind onto paper (well onto screen, paper just sounds more romantic doesn't it?), enjoying the fact that I can somehow make my thoughts makes sense when written where sometimes I can't when spoken out loud. 

So here I am, writing for the sake of writing, and honestly really quite enjoying it. In an attempt to re-kickstart (if that is a phrase) this little blog of mine I've had a redesign, which I do rather like looking at so here's hoping I carry on being inspired to type away. 

Amy x