Writing
I'm going to stop being afraid of writing.
Neil Gaiman, Rainer Maria Rilke and Gustav Holst are the specific heavyweight inspirations for this burst of courage. But explaining the initial reticence which has silenced me for more than a few months is a complicated one and comes down to several wildly different things in my personal life. I'm resolved, however, to put them aside. The main reason for this is that not writing is making me actively suffer, and this concern, it's increasingly clear, has to outweigh all other reasons (which are more diffuse, more abstract, and largely sited in cowardice).
On similar lines, I have abandoned Facebook (which was previously functioning as a bit of a compulsion) and need to write a bit of an essay on why that should be, as the reasons for it, I think, will only really become clear to me when I write them down; just like the reasons why I choose to write, here, semi publicly (knowing that this writing will be read by a combination of acquaintances and random strangers) and the reasons why Twitter feels more acceptable. On the very simplest level, it's obvious to me that there would be no point in writing a private journal. It's in the act of symbolic publication - under my own, actual name (and take that as you will, but the 'Victoria' bit at least is my name) - that the writing actually can leave my brain and sit there as an offering. It has to be offered up, in some sense, for it to function as I need it to.
There's something of Sir Walter's "We must retrench" (from Persuasion, Austen) in the spirit of the moment, too, and part of that involves writing again. Retrenching and clarifying and simplifying and structuring thought properly. Newness and clarity.
That's all for now. My hands are cold from typing and an Edgar Allan Poe type of sensation is sinking down upon me so I must go and find something to shake it off. Luckily for me, keeping an eye on myself and tweaking here and there to maintain things on an even keel is something that I have developed into a personal system that works quite well.
