11/9/19
What if
by Holly Winter
by Holly Winter
I sat by the fireplace planning out the next months of my life. I could either write my book about traveling in Turkey, or I could travel every weekend to somewhere exciting. This or that? Maybe I could write blogs about my weekend trips. Small posts. Small posts hidden in a small, dark corner of the internet like a box filled with old photographs.
Or maybe I could write small things without trying to define them.
For a woman who is comfortable observing life from behind her journal, I've always worried that the isolation of writing would snuff out my connection to the world. Shouldn't I be out having fun rather than sitting in my office?
Yes. That was it. What if writing makes me feel even more alone?
I've written online before and had a sizable fan base who emailed me insisting that I ate certain foods or gave up certain foods. My readers were experts on bossing me around.
"If you don't start eating pineapple..."
"He is your soul mate, you need to step-it-up and propose to him by the third date, or you'll lose him forever."
"Do you like to have sex with chickens?" (I wrote back to this one, asking for more information and did not get an answer. Pity, We'll never know.)
These readers flew into fits of love when they approved of what I wrote and then raged ugly when I didn't. They wanted me to get back together with the wrong man or travel to a different country, or go back to the man who would become Governor of Colorado and properly introduce myself.
In case. Just in case.
Their mad attention weighed on me. Tiresome. So tiresome. I just wanted to write.
I'd never shied from leaving people or places and so after my website readership grew to six-digit numbers every month, I killed my darlings and dumped the heavy, heavy burden of fans into the internet void, refusing to copy their email addresses in case I changed my mind. It was like burning my little black book of contacts, but it was for my sanity not in the name of love for another.
I wrote my memoir and several fans of long ago found it. How do they hold on when I gave so little in return? You'd think they'd care that I didn't know how to love them back.
Or maybe I could write small things without trying to define them.
For a woman who is comfortable observing life from behind her journal, I've always worried that the isolation of writing would snuff out my connection to the world. Shouldn't I be out having fun rather than sitting in my office?
Yes. That was it. What if writing makes me feel even more alone?
I've written online before and had a sizable fan base who emailed me insisting that I ate certain foods or gave up certain foods. My readers were experts on bossing me around.
"If you don't start eating pineapple..."
"He is your soul mate, you need to step-it-up and propose to him by the third date, or you'll lose him forever."
"Do you like to have sex with chickens?" (I wrote back to this one, asking for more information and did not get an answer. Pity, We'll never know.)
These readers flew into fits of love when they approved of what I wrote and then raged ugly when I didn't. They wanted me to get back together with the wrong man or travel to a different country, or go back to the man who would become Governor of Colorado and properly introduce myself.
In case. Just in case.
Their mad attention weighed on me. Tiresome. So tiresome. I just wanted to write.
I'd never shied from leaving people or places and so after my website readership grew to six-digit numbers every month, I killed my darlings and dumped the heavy, heavy burden of fans into the internet void, refusing to copy their email addresses in case I changed my mind. It was like burning my little black book of contacts, but it was for my sanity not in the name of love for another.
I wrote my memoir and several fans of long ago found it. How do they hold on when I gave so little in return? You'd think they'd care that I didn't know how to love them back.
And now that I've been sitting in the land of forgotten writers, which is a perfect hideaway, I've decided it's time for me to sneak back into the online world, not as a promise but as a project. I will write. (Hello World. This blog is NOT required reading.) This fodder is for my hobby of writing, my growth. No fixing. No rearranging phrases and words. My writing.
Writing small. Just because.
(I think I am writing the word "I" too much, that's a sure fire way to tell that I'm too focused on myself. Weren't you going to watch TV so I could wash my hair?)
This experience in writing-RAW where (Again, that self-centered pronoun.) I don't fix my words and don't plan out what I will write here. I will tell nobody about this blog. (If you found this gem, enjoy it or run away, it matters not.)
These words are public in a private way. I like that.
These words are public in a private way. I like that.
I will let words flow, if they're in the mood to flow.
Just for fun.
Because I enjoy writing.
Sometimes.
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