Sparking a Light

Well another year has been and gone and the last time I wrote anything on my blog was last year, just before I took drastic action, grabbed the shy me by the scruff of the neck and took myself off for my first writing holiday. Now it wasn’t one of these planned trips targeted at would be writers, so there were no fellow creatives in sight and my bank balance was not as hard hit, (why are all themed holidays so crazily expensive?)

So off I went, I went with purpose, I went alone and I went with one thing in my mind, writing.

I went to the Cotswolds because I wanted to soak up the atmosphere “on location” as it were as I have a very specific setting in mind for one of my novels, I wanted to smell the air, see the changes of light from day to night and how it changed with the weather. It was the best thing I have done in a long time. I wrote, my story coming to life with every word written, I tweaked two other novels I have been working on for ages and found my mind brimming with ideas, the spark had been lit, the embers stirred and the fire burned brightly.

But then the reality hit me on my return, it was as if I had been in a dream, those few days the dream was reality, I was a writer and I was writing and I loved every second of it, but back home in reality where there are bills to pay and one hundred and one things on my ever increasing to do list the fire dimmed, changes in my work meant I no longer felt at home and the fire fizzled that little bit more, the stress of feeling like starting over and the reality that my dreams are a very distant prospect meant I lost myself . The darkness threatened to consume me, but on I fought and I am still fighting, fighting the urge to curl up in a ball and hide away because that is not the person I want to be. So since those few days on my writing retreat I have not written a single word, I have not updated this blog, because all my energy has been devoted to keeping myself sane, to keeping myself treading water.

Is this because I have not done the things that spark the light in me?, I feel as if I have been living in the shadows once more, tiredness enveloping my soul because the spark is not there. But I am defiant today. Here I am, stoking the embers just a little, I need to spark that light again, anyone got a match?

#author #depression #writer #writing