Lorraine Hansberry first wrote those words in 1969’s To Be Young, Gifted and Black.
Eventually it comes to you, the thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is eventually that which must also make you lonely.
The wisdom in those words stuck with me since I first read them, and it has proven itself quite accurate in my own daily life, so I’m going to share it here.
Continue reading “what makes you exceptional is also what makes you lonely”
It can be messy.
Sometimes the words come out sideways, or in a jumbly mess of intrusive thoughts and run-on sentences.
It can be scary.
Writing brings things to the surface, directly or indirectly revealing our secrets, assumptions and fears.
It can be difficult.
There requires a certain audacity to write, to dare try capture the human experience on paper (or pixels).
Writing, like most pursuits, can be waylaid by events of life.
Because life is messy, and scary, and difficult.
And people in life can be messy, and scary, and difficult too.
That is the thing about writing.
Continue reading “the thing about writing”
I think I’ve only spent about ten percent of my energies on writing…
The other ninety percent went to keeping my head above water.Katherine Anne Porter
I have already answered why, as well as where, so let me unpack when I write.
I write when not too worn out by my mental illness.
I write when my chronic depression isn’t so overwhelming that I struggle to function.
I write when I can, in irregular spurts, writing through and in spite of my sickness.
I’ve struggled since early youth with depression.
I remember as early as middle-school feeling at specific times especially anti-social and mournful, without any clear reason or cause. Highschool was a hostile environment for me where I felt plagued by insecurities, actively seeking out bathroom stalls and library cubbies to hide day after day. University saw me continue to try unsuccessfully to cope with self-harming as well as self-medicating with drugs and alcohol.
It was easy in my adolescence to dismiss these spells of moody ’emo’ sadness as just stereotypical teenage angst. In my twenties, however, with my depression still undiagnosed, I felt ashamed for failing to have moved past an ‘infantile’ stage of dramatic mood swings.
Not until after completing a Master’s program, surviving a series of mental breaks and acute depressive episodes, was I hospitalized and finally diagnosed. It came as a surprise that I was actually so relieved to have a name, clinical depression, to explain these problems weren’t an inherent defect of my person but symptoms of an illness.
Suddenly a light switched on for me to see that help through medication and therapy were not character weaknesses but necessary choices for my survival, demonstrations of courage in the face of social stigma.
Soon after I became a writer.
Before committing to writing as a career,
make sure you’re not simply agoraphobic or depressed.Nell Zink
Continue reading “when archie writes – writing depressed af”
Hey, thanks for clicking!
So yea, I’ve been following my own advice – and thus far in this strange year of twenty-twenty, I have been writing every single fucking day.
Imagine that?
Well, I’ve been journaling every day (3 pages, written by hand) and also writing fiction every day but Sundays (750 words minimum, written on a computer).
And no, I haven’t had an easy year either, what with global pandemics to family matters to my own personal struggles inside my head.
Allow me to explain some changes I’ve been practising that help me be a bonafide writer.
Onwards… Continue reading “how archie wrote words every day of 2020 (so far, anyway)”
Life is … complicated.
Or perhaps ‘life’ is simple, and it is the ‘living’ of life that complicates things.
Complicates, as in, making things a hellofa lot more stressful and tiresome than needed.
I am skilled at that kind of living, through years of practice.
Yet I am also learning new ways to live, to be me, a writer.
A writer is someone who puts words together, tells stories, creates people and places.
To do that, you need to make the effort of literally writing, whether on paper or screen. Ideally, writing should happen regularly, not only to build the creative muscles but to improve at the craft of words and to also write more than a page per year.
For some time, as I tried to become and live as a writer, I would go through spells of productivity – writing regularly, meeting my goals and making good progress – followed by spells of anti-productivity – actively avoiding my stories, procrastinating with every conceivable excuse and committing increasing energy to feel like a failure for it.
Always, inevitably, back and forth.
A pendulum of extremes.
Alls-or-nothings.
Blacks-and-whites.
Writing like a true bonafide artist one day, then the next day not writing like a wannabe/has-been artist, scared of seeing my own shadow.
“I put off another day of writing, so clearly I am self-sabotaging and should stop calling myself a writer…”
For SO LONG this was my routine, feeling like a champ for writing today or else feeling like my own worst enemy thwarting my growth as a writer.
When suddenly it occurs to me:
all of it – the writing and the not writing – is the practice.
Continue reading “what archie means when they talk about writing [and not writing]”
Hi.
It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
It’s felt like a long while, for me, since I’ve last spilled my thoughts on this virtual paper.
The longer I put off writing on this here blog, then the more I’m likely to think I need to write something even longer, something even better, with my next blog post.
And I’m trying to not enable that sort of rationale, so this right here is an active effort to keep things short and sweet.
Hey hello!
In the spirit of me running late this morning, let’s get straight into this, shall we?
So that’s a quickie on what I, archie the writer, have been doing.
Now I want to speak a bit to the title of this post, and this phenomenon of how we humans tend to lose perspective, or just become mildly disoriented, in what exactly the fuck we are trying to do – right now, this moment, as you inhale your next breath.
Okay, let me elaborate…
Continue reading “cannot see the trees because of the forest”
A while back, I shared news about a free online writing course.
Since then, I’ve been keeping a list of some others to share at a later time.
That time is now.
*Cue dramatic music* Continue reading “archie reviews… online writing courses!”
Hi!
I wanted to share this short clip from an interview with Ira Glass, presented in the lovely format of kinetic typography.
His words are especially relevant for anyone doing creative work because it reminds us all how the quality of perseverance is essential to the long-term success of honing talent.
Everyone needs the investment of time, of practice, to improve any skill set.
For writers, it is the skill of communicating clearly and simply our own inner vision.
Remember that – keep going ❤
archie.
Good things are found if one knows where to look…
Such as all those free online resources available for writers.
Yes, ‘free’ often means low-quality, but I’m not about that life.
The International Writing Program at the University of Iowa presents Power of the Pen: Identities and Social Issues in Fiction and Nonfiction, a free massive open online course.
This creative writing MOOC will focus on writing about identities, communities, and social issues in fiction and nonfiction.
There is no cost to enroll;
registration is completely free for all participants.No writing experience is required.
Welcoming writers of all communities and identities.
Follow the link by clicking here!
Have fun!
archie.
archie writes 