Everything and Anything:

Wagon ruts, words and the way back to myself

As a follow-up to my last post, I want to now offer my apology and my warning. I’m going to keep your secrets, but I won’t keep mine. I want to write fiction, and if I don’t write these “everything” essays, I won’t write any stories. My brain is an Appalachian forest full of wagons of words, rumbling around, waiting for release.

There are days—years, even—when I’ve put off being myself. Now, I find, I’m in a bit of trouble, for this act of avoidance has carved pathways in my brain like wagon wheel ruts in the dirt. The habitual hiding grinds me down and stops my writing cold.

Years ago I stopped blogging. There was no rage-quit, no dramatic farewell. One day I simply… stopped. Part of it was the shift in the web itself. In the early 2010s, the culture turned: what had been a heady and productive space became a volatile kill zone. Anything you wrote brought hate. Even a pile of sleeping kittens could get you doxxed.

Around then, a saying began repeating in my head: “If you can’t write everything, you won’t write anything.” It was a warning. If I wasn’t raw and vulnerable in essays, my brain, like a spiteful woodland sprite, would block the fiction too. No inspiration. No risk. No stories.

Whatever, I told myself. Who cared? I had paid writing work. I had kids and a spouse to support. I convinced myself I didn’t need that shit. If I blogged, if I wrote “for real,” my family’s privacy might be breached. My truths might leak out. Playing it safe meant shutting it all down.

Fast forward. My youngest went off to college, and time sucker-punched me in the jaw. I’ve been reeling for more than a year. I am so used to pickling on the back shelf of life’s dark pantry that I don’t remember how to start fresh.

I try to recall what it felt like when I was younger—35 years ago, even just 15 years ago. Back then I had the right to speak, to be seen, to exist. I used my voice freely. Then society screamed at me: no-one asked for your opinion.

No-one asked, that was true. But here’s another truth: no-one ever asks anyone. And no-one asked anyone to come over here and read what I write.

I’m done with the haze. I’ve always been a writer, and I’ll die a writer. And guess what? Writers fucking write. Now I’m simply going to write anything, so I can get to writing everything I’ve always dreamed of. The wagons of words are leaving the forest now, creaking into the unknown. I don’t know where this trail leads, but I’m following it. Hike it with me. Together we’ll find what lurks in the shadows and discover what awaits us just beyond the trees.