Abandonment (in regards to writing)

I can't believe I haven't posted in this since Feb of last year. Yet realizing that fits nicely in with what I intended to post in here about. Watch, it's gonna be Awesome.

I met with my friend Chris for a drink a couple nights ago. Chris and I were writing students together at CSUN, and he was one of the few people who instantly got what I was aiming for with my writing before I got better at--for lack of a better term--mass appeal. His critiques of my earlier works helped me find my footing and expand on what I was good at while improving on what I needed to improve on.

When I made my various attempts at forming a writer's group, Chris was constantly the only one who would respond. Ten or eleven e-mail recipients and he and I were the only two who were willing to put the effort in to actually starting the group. Neither of us felt that was enough at the time, so the writer's group never formed.

Roll forward, skip ahead a few chapters.

I haven't written anything of note since I graduated in December of 2009. Chris, it turns out, hasn't written anything of note since he graduated in May of 2010. We discussed this, framing our discussion in terms of having no deadlines. Neither of us had anybody to write for, nor any reason to generate works. I've told myself I'm writing to get my graduate school submission ready, and yet I still can't overcome my inertia. I feel the need to write, I just seem to lack the capacity. Our discussion then turned to the failed attempts at writers' groups. We both felt that we were abandoning our writing skills and neither of us was happy about that.

Aaaand then we had our moment of clarity. The two of us can easily be enough justification for the other to write. A group may be ideal, but in the absence of the ideal one must work within the reality he/she has. My reality is that Chris and I are willing to write and trade stories, to critique our works for one another, and keep each other honest about writing. We are willing to generate deadlines for ourselves.

I took a year off from writing to focus on my growth as a person. I have matured, changed, and undergone a serious psychological overhaul. Now it's time for me to open up that blackness and stare into it as the New Me. I've abandoned that blackness for long enough, and it's long overdue that I allow it to stare back into me. I need to know what it sees now that I've become the person I am now. That may be the subject of my next post here.