Happy the Writer

Twenty-six months of hiatus - that's how long my artist-at-rest sojourn was.

During this time I did write, but not a lot. I finished my writing course. I journalled. I wrote for work but not for pleasure. And I was kind to myself that I wasn't writing my blog. I knew that the time would come when I would be enthused to write it again - and if it didn't that would be fine too. There is time for everything under the sun.

And that time was this morning - I got to my writing desk and wanted to re-engage my blog. So I signed in for the first time in twenty-six months, without having to look up my password, and scrolled through the updates of the blogs that I follow - the ones that take me from Winnipeg via Tuscany to Johannesburg.

I looked at my own blog and wondered where to from here. I realised that it has morphed into my writer's scrapbook and, as such, it doesn't necessarily have a theme or follow a format. It looks like a scrapbook: filled with bits of this and that, it has practise pieces of writing, motivational pieces on writing or walking closely with God, and word pictures of instances in my life.

I've also realised that I do not write to become famous or sought-after. There are far too many pleasures in life to be enjoyed to add those pressures to my life. As Margaret Atwood says in 'Negotiating with the Dead - A Writer on Writing', "Happy the writer who begins simply with the activity itself."

I must say, it is good to feel the wind beneath my writing wings again!