Dissertation finished. Now what? Since finishing my degree, which consumed the last three years of my life, I have been struggling with how to begin the more creative aspect of my life again. If you have been following, which you probably have not because I haven't posted recently, you might have seen some of my starts and stops. I tried. I stopped. I tried again. I stopped again. Well, now that I have no more excuses, I have been struggling with how to start again, but this time, in a lasting way. My wife suggested 10 minutes. Find a task that only last 10 minutes that will make me feel good and nourish my creative side. That could be writing, reading, going for a walk, talking with a close friend. I just need to find 10 minutes in my day that I can start writing poetry again. Honestly, I have been a bit terrified to start writing poetry again because I have been writing academic prose for so long, I am worried that I may have forgotten how to be creative, expressing myself in poetry. No APA citations. No parenthetical references. No reference section. No chapters. Just free-flowing emotions onto the page or screen.
Now, I have a strict rule (or at least I had a rule) that I can only be creative when I write using a pen and paper; no computer. All of my previous poetry has been handwritten, then revised, edited, and finally typed onto my blog for semi-public consumption. So, for all of my starts and stops, I am once again starting afresh with 10 minutes today, then 10 minutes tomorrow, then 10 more minutes the next day. Hopefully, some of it will be good enough to end up on this blog.
We shall see.
We shall see.
