It is with sweet and dreadful anticipation that I watch the month of April come closer and closer with its promises of daffodils and poetry.
I’ve participated in the online poetry-challenge #escapril on Instagram since it first began in 2019. Last year was not a good one for me, and I gave up and did not finish the challenge, which made me immensely disappointed with myself. My relationship with my writing has been an odd one this past year, even uncomfortable one could say, which has resulted in me reading more books than trying to write one. I’m trying something different this Escapril though, and I’m hoping to be able to execute this plan to my satisfaction (while reminding myself that it is totally OK if I fail — well, trying to remind myself of that, at least). Take a shot every time I tell you I’m trying.
Anyway, I think I’m happy with my blog now; the green and pink theme was lovely but in the end I settled for these latte-colors that you see now. Maybe this blog will help me find my way back to writing, writing the way I once did again. Not effortlessly perhaps, but at least more easily, bleedingly.
I look forward to April, despite the tinge of anxiety telling me I’ll never once more find that room in my mind, where I used to be able to disappear for days and just write and write and write — I’m sure I will find it though, because I’ve learned not to trust what silly pessimistic things my thoughts might tell me. Maybe Escapril 2023 will help me with getting back into that room, that writing-desk-with-dust-dancing-in-the-sunlight-window room hiding in my head. Or it will not. Either way, I’m going to have fun. And if I ever stumble upon writer’s block during this upcoming month, at least I’m determined to have a good time up until then.
“Hemingway once said that ‘there is nothing to writing, you just sit down at a typewriter and bleed.’ What Hemingway failed to mention is that bleeding is the easy part. To cut is what makes writing hard. Sitting down to write and hitting that first key or touching the tip of your pen to that blank sheet of paper - that’s the hard part. Once you start - once you spill that first bit of ink and let it bleed into the page, the rest takes care of itself. There’s nothing to it. You just sit there and bleed until it stops. It is not for this reason, but it’s still interesting and worth mentioning that the word ‘write’ comes from the Proto-Germanic word ‘writan,’ which literally meant to scratch, tear, or cut.” — Sean Norris
i’m finding myself overwhelmed with everything i want to do (mainly regarding the books i want to read, the stories i want to write and the games i want to play) and because of that i’ve ended up doing pretty much nothing that i want to do these past two weeks. because if i chose one thing to do, all those other things weigh down on me like “hello! what about us?” which is terribly distracting. so, it feels calmer to just neglect it all, a balanced and equally distributed kind of negligence. it’s an unhappy comfort (which turns into a question of priorities: is it best to be happy or comfortable? happy of course. is it easer to be happy or comfortable? comfortable of course. sadly the best and the easiest ways rarely exist on the same pinpoint.) i wish i could pause the hours of the day, i wish i never needed sleep, i wish the endless freedom of choosing what to do with my own time would be less paralyzing. these periods of nothingness frustrate me to no end — i keep falling into the same trap over and over again. it’s the feeling of having a lot to do. but i don’t even actually have to do it! i don’t have to read the way i have to do the dishes. i don’t have to write the way i have to do the laundry. i don’t have to play stardew valley the way i have to feed my bunnies. it’s all in my head. i know i’ll come around again, i always do, especially whenever i finally realize that ah. this again; dammit!
is this the fatal flaw donna tartt writes about in the secret history’s first chapter? her character richard’s is a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs, and here is mine: a habit of making everything i love into a chore, until i can do it no more.
Why must you vex me so? I feel like I’ve been going quite mad setting up this website — I will certainly never consider web-design, should I ever look for a change in career. Does this blog look like hours of confusion and aggravation to you? No, I think not. Is it the product of it though? Yes, yes it is.
But I believe I am quite happy with it now. Might switch up the color theme from time to time depending on what I feel like (for now, green and shock pink apparently).
the apricity fairy 