Start where you are, Patti said to us in VerbTribe. Here I am halfway through the year approaching my forty-eighth birthday and I am beginning to write again.  I wrote through March on my screenplay and slapped on a to-be-continued ending and pronounced it done. My fellow WriteNiters sagely called me on it and said they wanted an ending with oomph not fizzle. I have been in a funk since the end of April feeling overwhelmed, uninspired, and resistant to writing—of any kind.

My journal lies unopened on my bedside shelf; my blog languishes from my absence. My resistance has taken on the form of not showing up. I’ve been on auto-pilot gliding over the surface of my days. I’ve felt disconnected and de-energized and I catch myself turning to look for something half remembered behind me. My muse, my creative spirit hangs her head and quietly trails me from room to room. I have the time in my schedule, I have the space to create—I am simply allowing fear to make my choices for me. I may fail spectacularly. I may succeed spectacularly. So what!? Do it anyway. Instead of dragging around like a husk of a passionate creative writer just write. So what if it’s crap? It’s still writing. Write through the crap to get to the good stuff.

Writing is a huge part of my life I have not shared on my blog until recently. I want to face that edge and not back down. I commit to sharing writing prompts or portions of my screenplay here regularly, anything goes. Yes, that scares the heck outta me yet at the same time it makes me stand up taller and say, Yeah, I wrote that.  I am starting where I am. Resistant yet determined to dissipate this funk. Sharing and connecting with you dear reader is the most loving step I can take for myself in this moment.

2 Common Raven in flight_ J Schmidt - nps

Here’s a poem I wrote for a prompt of being a bird:

Krak

My body is the night

blacker than pitch.

Imagine the evening sky, stars snuffed out like candles.

I am soaked in black

my feathers reflect iridescent purple.

 

Bold am I.

Bodacious.

Raucous.

I scream at my crow cousins.

I am mighty—

They are minions in my kingdom.

 

Raven am I.

Maven of heaven.

My intense inky eyes

blink rapidly

on either side of my head.

Monocular vision—

so foreign to you,

allows a view of ALL.

 

I am always alert, ready, poised.

The branch sways

I hold my head still

to triangulate.

What buoyant substance is sealed in

these hollow bones?

Which make my body

lighter

than the air that kisses it?

 

I am not shackled by gravity

my wings spread in a shadowy embrace

my legs thrust

I point my beak to the rising sun.

Close to the ground I swoop and loop

over my crow cousins.

Krak, krak I call

to remind them

I am here.

Always watching.

Their dark master.

 

I lift on a current like a branch in the sea

and surge

upwards

a black smudge in an azure sky.

My belly is full.

My wings are strong

I beat them up then down

steadily

and feel the wind

shoot me higher.

 

A thermal!

I bank right.

The heavens are devoid

of other life

I circle the funnel of air

feathers streaming

eyes seeking

my wings stroke the air.

krak, krak

alive, I scream. I am alive.