Creative writing is a passion. As long as I can remember, I’ve had an affair with the written word. From adolescent days of scribbling poetry on the pitfalls of love to adult days of scripting essays, stories, poems. Creativity is spontaneous and unconscious themes emerge and I experience here-and-now awakenings. I exhale heaviness as I inhale release.
Expressing my emotion on paper makes my brain feel better, calmer. As I tap away on the computer keyboard, feelings of anger, confusion, rejection, melt and evaporate. I call it emotional vomiting; puking up hurtful feelings that ruminate and embed into the immune system and cause physical, mental, and spiritual sickness.
Many past experiences have been healed via my personal writing therapy. Remembering bruised and battered memories produced temporary pain as I worked through issues on paper. However, the pain did seep out of the memories and did not return.
Thoughts are analyzed, synthesized, evaluated, reflected upon, and clarified. Understanding of self and others emerge, sometimes like a trickle and sometimes like a flood. My sensory sources are stimulated and heightened as I examine my self-made and other-made environment. Meaning leaks out of my prose.
My mind and body communicate and connect on another level. I am in a state of focus as I block out the outer world. I write, I think, I process, I experience, I reflect, I heal.
Writing for my eyes only is one thing but writing for the masses is another. During my career counselor era, I wrote short columns for several newspapers on the topic of careers and employment and wrote longer guest columns for various employment newspaper publications. Seeing your articles published and read by community (people) is exhilarating! I published a few columns on humor in the family for my local newspaper. No pay was involved, but the writing experience was priceless.
I attended two conferences for writers and read boocues of books on the profession of writing and publishing. When I sold two fictional short stories to a magazine for money ($30.00 each) I jumped with utter joy! Of course, the downside includes letters of rejection received from multiple editors of various publications.
Blessed are those who engage in creative writing for they shall find communication with the soul.
Read more articles by Melissa Martin or search for articles on the same topic or others.
