Warm Light

Walking through the dark of night, you squint at the ground as you slowly find purchase in the rocky soil of the poppy field. You look up and are startled to see the warm light of a lantern in the distance. As you make your way closer, you realize a person, bundled in a thick, dark cloak, holds the lantern in front of them. You start walking towards them. 🌟⭐️She/they⭐️🌟 Writer / Storyteller / Lover of imagination Everyone has a story to tell.

[lanternperson]

If you’re talking to someone and they say something like, “I’m not a writer or anything but I’ll do some poetry here and there,” grab them and shake them and say “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT THAT’S WRITING YOU ARE A WRITER”

[eden-3000]

"I write for my own enjoyment"

And

"I'm happy when people interact with my writing"

Are two sentences that can coexist!

[lanternperson]

I feel like it’s common to think of writing as a solitary activity, but it can be so much fun to bring other people into it! Like asking your friends super niche questions to get inspiration (“what caves have you been to and what were the acoustics like?”), or even coming up with a character or story together.

[lanternperson]

Listen!

When you lay on your stomach with the side of your head pressed against the mattress, you can hear your own heartbeat.

You can feel your chest pressing downwards. The pulse in your ear and the rhythm filling your body mimic the sound of a beating drum striking far in the distance. A drum struck hard enough to carry blood to your farthest extremities.

Oh, your heart. It pulses against your ribcage, pushes against gravity, presses into the mattress. Over and over and over. In this moment, it pulses.

The beat of a drum that keeps you alive. The music, the force that delivers your breath to your flesh.

You only notice the music every so often, like when you lay on your stomach with the side of your head pressed against the mattress. But it is always there.

[lanternperson]

Writing has become a sanctuary for me. A time where, in solitude and contemplation, I can be myself.

Sometimes, I place the words gently on the page, with love and care.

Other times, I scribble with hurried strokes in anger, or write big, dripping letters in sorrow.

These pages know me well. The pen helps me know myself.

[hoshi-no-koinu]

and sometimes i get so lost that I drag both of us down

both me and the pen

unable to move or express

despite both of us wanting to scream

a friend one day, a hated foe the next

it brings me both pleasure and pain

and helps me drown out my sorrows with its own

keeping me locked in its addictive grasp

unable to move

unable to breathe

and yet time and time again

i will pick up the pen once more

and straighten out my laid down paper

and i will smile

[sourdough-seal]

me, struggling to write: hmm, this part is a little difficult. maybe i should check my planning document, which i created as a helpful tool for my writing process!

the planning document:

[lanternperson]

When I was younger, I obsessed over the idea of being a published writer more than I actually wrote. I wanted to be good at it, and I knew that I wasn’t.

In my imaginings of the future, I pictured myself as a seasoned author with a stack of written works resting on a desk, my hand resting lightly atop the tower, as if to say, “look at the breadth of my skill! I believe I have achieved enough. My work is complete; my hand need never pick up the pen again.”

Looking back, I wonder why I painted that picture in my head, a static image that seldom changed. Never did I imagine myself writing in a busy cafe or scribbling poetry under lamplight. I never saw myself writing the books; they just materialized, in all their hardback, small-font glory under my outstretched hand.

This image perverted my love of well-written stories. Whenever I brought my pen to a blank page, I could only write what I thought “novelists” wrote about. Without any passion or truth behind my words, they felt lifeless and empty. Not content with the idea that something I wrote wouldn’t be consumed by an audience, I often chose to write nothing at all.

I hadn’t yet learned that writing is a process of self-discovery. It is a means of trying to understand a chaotic world. And now, it is not something to accomplish; it is who I am.

I am a writer.

[inspirationallybored]

This is actually so true.

For anyone and everyone who is persuing anything in the world,

Do it for yourself, not to mark off the checklist of life. Not to accomplish something. Just for you.

[lanternperson]

After spending a while giving in and staring down at a small device, twitching my thumb over and over in an attempt to reach an end that doesn’t exist, my mind feels empty - devoid of thought and emotion.

I guess that’s the goal, in a way - to escape the pressures and challenges of life. In doing so, though, I am denying myself my humanity. I am suppressing the very things that make me human.

I tend to pull out the device in those in-between moments. Moments when I don’t have anything planned, where nothing of much importance seems to happen. But when I look back, I realize that most of my time is spent in the in-betweens.

I am procrastinating on living the life I want to live. I want to figure out how to take joy in small moments. To feel grateful for their abundance in my life.

[jmweaverauthor]

There's nothing more important than writing what you want to read. Don't worry about who will like your book. Don't worry about what market it can neatly fit into. Don't cut corners or blunt edges to satisfy an imaginary person who might dislike aspects of your art. It's yours. Treat it as a pure expression of your soul. Compromise is for cowards.

[jmweaverauthor]

Don't ever let anybody talk you out of writing or pursuing your passions. Every time you write, you're improving your craft. Every time you read, you're also improving your knowledge of the craft you love. Keep at it, give yourself and your art some grace, and some room to breathe. The only person who can ever stop you from writing is you, and wouldn't that be a shame? You'll never know who might be touched by your work if you give up on it now.

[lanternperson]

When I was younger, I obsessed over the idea of being a published writer more than I actually wrote. I wanted to be good at it, and I knew that I wasn’t.

In my imaginings of the future, I pictured myself as a seasoned author with a stack of written works resting on a desk, my hand resting lightly atop the tower, as if to say, “look at the breadth of my skill! I believe I have achieved enough. My work is complete; my hand need never pick up the pen again.”

Looking back, I wonder why I painted that picture in my head, a static image that seldom changed. Never did I imagine myself writing in a busy cafe or scribbling poetry under lamplight. I never saw myself writing the books; they just materialized, in all their hardback, small-font glory under my outstretched hand.

This image perverted my love of well-written stories. Whenever I brought my pen to a blank page, I could only write what I thought “novelists” wrote about. Without any passion or truth behind my words, they felt lifeless and empty. Not content with the idea that something I wrote wouldn’t be consumed by an audience, I often chose to write nothing at all.

I hadn’t yet learned that writing is a process of self-discovery. It is a means of trying to understand a chaotic world. And now, it is not something to accomplish; it is who I am.

[lanternperson]

Writing has become a sanctuary for me. A time where, in solitude and contemplation, I can be myself.

Sometimes, I place the words gently on the page, with love and care.

Other times, I scribble with hurried strokes in anger, or write big, dripping letters in sorrow.

These pages know me well. The pen helps me know myself.

[lanternperson]

Sometimes I feel like I have so much love and nowhere for it to go, no one to give it to.

Is that loneliness? Love without expression? Concealed in your heart, left to ripen and then mold, decaying and leaving a hole?

What does it lead to, this rotten, spoiled love?

[lanternperson]

The soft, percussive sound of rain hitting the roof outside while you sit flipping the pages of a good book.

Sunlight filtering through the trees on a familiar road.

The first flowers that have bloomed in the springtime; the cool freshness of the air.

A day plagued by sadness, and yet, the clouds part, revealing a blue sky, the silhouettes of chirping birds soaring across it.

A small animal, a cat, perhaps, stretching herself across your lap in perfect contentment.

The loud, joyous exclamations of friends and family eating a meal, then cleaning it up; the white noise of the wind and cars in the distance as you stare up into the night sky, peering at the moon, wondering where the stars have gone.

A faint feeling of missing out on something; the realization that there is nothing to miss out on.