100(ish) Words, 100 Days: Intro

  I came across a website that challenged people to write 100 words, everyday, for 100 days. With writing, I need structure, a project, so I decided to try the 100 challenge. Today is my first entry.

  I've been thinking about words. As a writer, that's part of the gig.  Lately, I've been stuck on the power words possess. Words can enhance, deconstruct, support, validate, diminish, name objects, and label emotions.

  The absence of words, depending on the situation, could be positive or negative.  I think of my mom, holding my hand as we watched a baking show.  I think of my sister, how she almost cried when I showed her my scars from a recent routine surgery.  Words, in those moments, did not belong.

  Words.  I look over the ones I don't know how to say.  The ones, when strung together, are too vulnerable to share.  Vulnerable.  For twenty years, I have left those words out.  Writing professors have said to me: "Your poems stop right before they get scary. Start at the scary."

  These 100 days, filled with approximately 100 words a day, are my way of breaking into the vulnerable.  These 100 days, hopefully, will show me the words I need to spell out on paper, illustrate where I need to go, and who I am meant to become.

  Struggle.  Human.  Uncover.  Begin.



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