Still Waters
Full Member
- Aug 1, 2024
Hi. I'm new here. I've been writing since the age of 10, but mostly in my diaries. I'm a writing addict. I literally tried to quit once, and reduced my writing down to bullet points in a long list. That lasted about a month, and then I was back to full-on writing.
Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, because I am a hard-core introvert with no real friends or family and a very bad family background that left me deeply scarred in more ways than I am able to comprehend, even today. Writing is and was the only means I have and had to process my daily experiences.
Now that the worst of my life is finally over, I'm discovering unwritten books in myself that embody the lessons and experiences I've survived, plus the wisdom I've gleaned from many years of healing and the inner work I've done to free myself from decades of trauma (and from the perpetrators of that trauma).
I've never been in a writing community before, nor studied or applied literary theories, tools, tricks, or done critiques, and I've almost never let anyone read anything I've written. I was always fiercely protective of my writings. I realize now, though, that that is because I was never writing for an audience and I knew nobody could possibly critique what I was writing (much of which was poetry, some prose), because what I wrote was therapy, emotions that just rolled from my heart to the pen onto the paper in the form of words, not for critique or an audience. I wrote to keep myself alive. I discovered that poetry was a tool I used to soften the harsh blows and violence in the world around me--my poetry made that which was ugly and furious beautiful and kind--and I needed that delusion. It was the only form of expression I had, and could keep secret from the people I deemed most dangerous to me.
Now, however, I have begun writing for others, to impart the wisdom and insights I've acquired about humanity and human life through my suffering and through traveling in this life from a familial hell into a solitary heaven, as much as we can experience heaven on Earth. So now I am seeking help to learn both how to improve my writing and how to critique and learn from others' writings.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here.
Celestine.
Writing for me is as necessary as breathing, because I am a hard-core introvert with no real friends or family and a very bad family background that left me deeply scarred in more ways than I am able to comprehend, even today. Writing is and was the only means I have and had to process my daily experiences.
Now that the worst of my life is finally over, I'm discovering unwritten books in myself that embody the lessons and experiences I've survived, plus the wisdom I've gleaned from many years of healing and the inner work I've done to free myself from decades of trauma (and from the perpetrators of that trauma).
I've never been in a writing community before, nor studied or applied literary theories, tools, tricks, or done critiques, and I've almost never let anyone read anything I've written. I was always fiercely protective of my writings. I realize now, though, that that is because I was never writing for an audience and I knew nobody could possibly critique what I was writing (much of which was poetry, some prose), because what I wrote was therapy, emotions that just rolled from my heart to the pen onto the paper in the form of words, not for critique or an audience. I wrote to keep myself alive. I discovered that poetry was a tool I used to soften the harsh blows and violence in the world around me--my poetry made that which was ugly and furious beautiful and kind--and I needed that delusion. It was the only form of expression I had, and could keep secret from the people I deemed most dangerous to me.
Now, however, I have begun writing for others, to impart the wisdom and insights I've acquired about humanity and human life through my suffering and through traveling in this life from a familial hell into a solitary heaven, as much as we can experience heaven on Earth. So now I am seeking help to learn both how to improve my writing and how to critique and learn from others' writings.
I'm grateful for the opportunity to be here.
Celestine.
