It is I, a whisper, returning from an extended, mostly unplanned hiatus from the writing sphere.
Not that I haven’t been writing, I have (shock! horror!) as you’ll soon learn in snippets; but the drive I discovered in 2019/2020, where I actually dared submit some work, took an absolute battering from the drudgery of social media and, worse still, my own brain’s tendency to second guess, overthink, minimize, compare, and doubt.
Can I hit this deadline? If I write like this, will it get accepted anywhere? Can I manage to post an inane little comment at least once a day on my accounts for engagement? Do people know I’ve no idea what I’m doing yet? Why is my process so slow?
Then, eventually, the overwhelming idea that I was visibly dropping to bits, that I had nothing worthwhile to say, and I may as well shut up.
I got bored of my own nattering, sick of feeling obliged to keep up to whatever waffle was floating about online, so I took my bat and ball with me and fucked off for a bit.
Y’know, forgetting that when I started I didn’t actually care, and just enjoyed it for what it was, spent my evenings jamming in The Smile Room, writing, painting, and making – mundane but lovely moments.
It was nice, for the most part, if not a bit lonely, and it did admittedly turn me into the sort of creature that works and lives to do nothing at all. Without writing all I did was work, rot on games, or get ready to sleep again as soon as possible.
I kept an eye on certain folk’s work, had the pleasure of a couple of people still checking in on me, but in general I just enjoyed the quiet and the nothing rather than reviewing a big fuck off forum of a hundred different opinions all at once, all the time – which is insanity, by the way, how is this our normal? It feels like an uphill struggle not to fall into its grasp.
In part, I was also just dealing with a lot in general, both good and bad. I am still, and may always be, one of those where even brilliant moments in life have the tendancy to exhaust me, but I have trundled on, wriggled out of some bad habits, and here I am with fresh eyes and adjusted priorities.
I wanted to ‘come back’ in the sense that I wanted to engage, somehow, in a way that fit me. Not endless social posting or having a laundry list of people to reply back to, not clicking ‘mark as read’ every other hour, not a rat race – but not complete silence either.
A whisper.
So, my compromise to myself: my inbox open as always, a spring clean, and my own space where I will ferry my posts away to socials and let them do as they want.
But mostly just a spot here, so I can chat, and hash out whatever it may be that I’m working on, gush about any significant progress, or frustrating moments… and to share pictures of my cat.
With that, I’m off, and I’ll leave you with a small snippet from a WIP titled Chickie, which is currently sat at about 13k and growing. My very lazy summary at the moment is thus:
A traveler makes his way through moorlands towards the coast, fleeing an entity they call ‘The Bloods’ which sends the men wild, and turns the women inside out.
I’ve really been vibing with dialect work lately – helps my brain switch off and stop overcalculating – so God bless and good luck to any non-Brits dissecting this.
Red light were shinin darn us backs as we turned t’ earth ta dig er grave, so we ad ta be quick abart it, an cause’ve that it were a reyt awful, shallow lickle grave she ended up wi. Tufts of er air stuck up from pockets’ve eather, like dand’lion fluff, an that were t’ oni headstone she got, an it were t’ last memory ah had’ve me Mam full stop. It were morbid, like, ah nor that. But it were better ta remember er as a tuft’ve air or a dirty fingernail peekin art from t’ soil than ta what t’ bloods did to er.
Rest’ve us band stood be the roadside, an some of us cried, but the red int corner’ve ya eye moves ya on sharpish, an ah reckon we barely spent a spare minute stood by rememberin her or sayin a prayer. We was off again before ah knew it, an soon enough, if ah stuck me head out carriage door an looked back, ah cunt see er patch of heather an air, it were all sucked up be t’ bloods trawlin closer, its spit frothin up an painting er restin place pink.
All ah thought ta do were whisper ta mesen: See ya later, Mam.