How Do You Decide What You Want Your Story to Say?
When I don't know what to say, I sit down in a crowded room and listen to the sounds around me.
I soak in the movement and the activity.
Sometimes, I drink an energy drink.
Red Bull is my totally innocent-and-not-in-any-way-guilty pleasure 😇
When that doesn't work, I people watch.
I once wrote a paper for a college course about people watching.
It took me hours and hours and hours...
And HOURS to come up with a topic for this paper.
To this day, I have no idea what the subject was supposed to be.
But I know I got a 98%.
All I had to do was sit down and look around.
If none of those tactics work, I ask myself a set of questions:
What do I want to say?
How do I want people to feel?
What do I want to be known for?
What action do I hope people will take?
Is there even an actionable goal involved or is this educational, info dumping, or sharing the juicy good stuff?
I also think back on moments in life where I felt very, very strong emotions.
And if you know me, you know by now that many of the most moving moments in my recent history are all tied to my daughter, Emerson.
She's my little golden string, tying me to you.
When I look back on my social media and the writing I was creating right after I lost her, I always cry.
Yes, it's easy for me to cry, I know what I lost, I know how I felt, and I know how I feel.
But I also find myself, quite honestly, marveling at the beauty of what I created - in a time when I was blinded by pain.
For me, the decision is easy:
I decide what I want to write based on what I've been through.
And the times I'm experiencing burnout, grief, or writer's block?
(yes, we all experience blocks - whether they're mental, physical, or emotional.)
To be perfectly honest,
Sometimes, I let the block get the best of me.
I don't write.
Sometimes, I let my mind stay blank and empty.
Those days, or weeks, always make me feel more sad, more blocked.
I find myself missing the opportunity that I have to create, to write.
I find myself sleeping wayyyy too much.
I find myself avoiding my laptop.
I don't pick up a pen.
When those moments hit, I have to take a step back and look back at the things I've done.
I remind myself how far I've come.
I remind myself the life I'm building.
And I can't help but always feel proud of Emerson's Momma.
That girl's been through a lot.
She's strong.
She's resilient.
She's crazy capable.
And she's me.
So, the bottom line is, always, always, always review your work.
Days, weeks, months, YEARS later.
Always go through the content you've created - especially in those high emotion times.
You never know what you might find.
Take a peek at this snippet of a post I made a few days after losing my sweet Emmi girl:
"I keep looking for pictures & videos of you holding onto me.
Your dad and I made it out to eat breakfast a few times.
Today, a family of four sat next to us.
They had a son and a little girl, very young.
The girl was old enough to say: “Mommy, I want you”,
But not old enough to form complete sentences.
With curly blonde hair,
Split into two pigtails.
She smiled at me over the back of her chair.
Her huge blue eyes with tiny black stars striping from her pupils, staring deep into mine.
I kept thinking about your eyes.
The hazel/blue/grey with a golden cream starburst in the center.
I thought about how I couldn’t wait for them to be as big as the eyes boring into mine.
I started to cry over a half-eaten omelette.
I quietly pushed it down and looked outside,
Grateful we waited to sit in the corner window table.
I paid for their food and we left.
Every day is just a regular day.
...
I kept imagining someone would call and say you’re not actually gone,
Even though I was there, holding you.
Even though I saw with my own eyes,
Felt with my own soul.
'It just doesn’t make sense,’ I’d say in my head,
‘It doesn’t make sense’ I screamed in my bed.
"It doesn’t make sense. this can’t be real.”
I told God, and everyone who asked if I was okay,
I said:
"I'm looking into someone else’s windows.
I see their living room, their dishes, their messes, their pictures.
It looks familiar somehow, like it's mine, all mine, all my things,
My dogs, my house, my clothes, my disheveled face, my baby girl...
But it belongs to someone else.
It's not really mine.
Is my name even Melynda?"
