The Necessity of Writing (from Writing as a Way of Healing by Louise DeSalvo)…
“Many people I know who want to write but don’t (my husband, Ernie, for example) or who want to write more than they have but say they can’t find the time (my friend Marla) have told me that taking the time to write seems so, well, self-indulgent, self-involved, frivolous even. And that finding the time to write – even a diary, much less fiction or memoir or poetry – in their busy schedules is impossible. “I’ll write when I have the time, “ they say. “A Walter Mitty fantasy,” someone I know calls it – thinking that the time to write will come along one day and poke you in the ribs and say, “I’m here; now you can write.”
What, though, if writing weren’t such a luxury? What if writing were a simple, significant, yet necessary way to achieve spiritual, emotional, and psychic wholeness? To synthesize thought and feeling, to understand how feeling relates to events in our lives and vice versa? What if writing were as important and as basic a human function and as significant to maintaining and promoting our psychic and physical wellness as, say, exercise, healthful food, pure water, clean air, rest and repose, and some soul-satisfying practice?”
Journaling Prompt #1: How do you find (make, claim, devote, prioritize, choose…) time for your writing?
Whether you are journal writing, crafting a memoir, or catching words on the page to inspire you for a later time, it takes time to write.
Journaling Prompt #2: How do you make time for what matters most to you?
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