“All you have to do is write ONE post,” I tell myself. “Just one.” I happily write posts and articles under pseudonyms pretty regularly. But when it comes to writing something under my own name again, I find that once again, I stall.
Is it because I want the writing under my own name to be something Important? Something that demonstrates my supposed great writing brilliance to the world? Do I even have anything to say anymore that hasn’t been said, time and time again and in far superior ways, by other people? Should I publish a story? Should I just regurgitate oft-repeated “writer” talking points, or rave about the state of the world or the political landscape instead, comfortable in the knowledge that I’m speaking to a captured audience who are already likely to share a large proportion of my views? Should I add my name to one of the interminably finger-wagging Open Letters that do the rounds just to prove I’m still here and a correctly-opinioned member of the “writing community”? Should I invent a new project to be ‘working on’, as if the stating of such will miraculously provide the kind of accountability that means the thing will eventually be tangible, complete, magicked into existence and find its way onto some bestseller or even “best of” lists, instead of a pile of half-written drafts shoved inside a drawer?
Should I write about my recent experiences of family bereavements, of dealing with perennial elder anxiety, with funerals, the nuances of the perfect eulogy, the wry observations on which acquaintances send condolences and which do not, and the knotty question of what to do with the unasked for ashes of loved ones, stacked in tasteful containers in their next of kin’s utility rooms? Should I write about ancient collapsing bathrooms, attic leaks, biblical water incursions into the walls of bedrooms, the ominous clunkings of 50-year old badly-fitted pipework, choosing between plumbers, the alarming rapidity of the onward march of time? Should I write about my US name-doppelganger, without whom I would not have to name my own blog something as puffed-up sounding as “Laura Windley Writer” to distinguish myself as separate from my doppelganger’s brand? Should I write about the cringe factor of “my writing” having gone backwards rather than forwards in the last few years, a spell so dry I may as well never have begun applying fingers to keyboards all those years ago at all?
Well, I could write about all or none of these things. But the point, I suppose, is to get over this ridiculous hump in the first place, just write whatever the hell I fancy, and then hit the publish button. Which is why this is exactly what I’ve done.