I didn’t stop writing.
But I did stop blogging.
Blog is such a funny part of our vernacular. It even sounds funny. Say it five times fast. Go ahead, you know you wanna.
Blog blog blog blog blog … bloooooooggggg …
It’s pretty close to the sound you make when throwing up. I don’t suggest, however, you experiment with that intentionally. A college friend claimed to have a book titled something like 101 Different Ways to Say Vomit. Calling Ralph on the big white phone was my favorite.
But I digress.
I posted weekly for a while. My periods of blogging regularity have come in spurts, in seasons when I felt I had something to say or a soapbox on which to perch myself.
Two years ago things changed.
I stopped blogging, but I didn’t stop writing.
In a moment metaphorically akin to a slow motion movie scene of a glass shattering on a tile floor, things changed. Cue the silence that follows.
If no one was there to hear the glass hit the floor, did it make a sound? Did it even happen?
I am immune to the whiplash caused by constantly changing business and life conditions.
Embrace the change. There will always be change. ~ Jennifer Grashel Share on X
This was different.
What to do now. What to do with the absence of the force of nature who kept me simultaneously sane and insane.
I was done speaking publicly for a while.
I stopped blogging, but I didn’t stop writing.
It started handwritten in a journal. One of those irresistible hardbound versions with Jesus-y quotes or even scripture references and a pleasing aesthetic. The kind I always think I’ll start journaling in regularly until I face the fact that I’m not a journaling regularly type of person.
It started with story after story, not necessarily in chronological order, because I was afraid I would forget. Afraid I would forget the details, the words, the feelings. Afraid I would explain them away as insignificant.
He was working on his own book. We were talking about a movie based on the crazy tale. Still are. He would proudly, with swagger, want you to know it ought to be R-rated. I was insisting PG-13 in the name of marketability and reaching a wider audience. How many f-bombs can you drop before crossing the threshold?
It started handwritten in a journal, because I felt more connected to the story when moving my pen across the page. Every time I thought of something I hadn’t covered yet, I would make a note on a piece of scrap paper, an envelope from a greeting card since discarded.
At first the stories were just for me and for input to the eventual script. But the words continued to flow. I continued to vomit, if you will, onto page after page.
It’s cliché, but sometimes you choose the book, sometimes the book chooses you.
Themes started coming together. Universal themes.
After the inevitable transition away from handwritten, enough time had passed I was ready to face the actual words. The digital record of texts, emails, and social media posts filled in the gaps. The sheer volume of the Actual Digital Words was overwhelming. Sifting through them was a necessary, albeit tedious, task in the pursuit of telling the truth of what happened. My view of it anyway.
Truth is truth, but we all have our own individual vantage points. Especially when we’re privy to different parts of the story.
I’m still trimming the voluminous actual words down to a readable number and moving onward toward a published work. The inner circle has the lengthy version and has been giving me feedback.
All this to say … I’m baaaaack.
Well, I never really left. I just stepped off that soapbox for a bit.
Carry On……..