Meg Dowell Writes

I feel like I’m doing more writing this semester than I ever have before, with two writing classes, my internship with College Lifestyles, newspaper, yearbook, and journaling a few scattered lines here and there. Yet a lot of times I still feel like writing for real, fiction that doesn’t matter with characters who develop over extended timespans and plots that twist so suddenly it makes me nauseous, always gets pushed to the bottom of my priority pool.

I’ve been writing for fifteen plus years (maybe a little less), and I still haven’t mastered what we call “making time to write about nothing even when there’s no time for anything.” I wish it were an easier concept to grasp, but it isn’t. I can type up a short blog post about writing, but blogs are meant for other people to see. I love my writing journal for ENGL 329, but it’s just an idea journal, and going back to sift through the pieces of poems and anecdotes I’ve scattered throughout the pages takes bravery and time (neither of which I currently seem to have).

Making time to write is necessary every day, at least for me. If I don’t write, I don’t function. It’s like eating and breathing and social interaction. (And no, writing about eating and breathing and social interaction is not a sufficient substitute for any of these real-world things). Even when I’m just blabbering on about my alarm not going off, or waking up and ignoring my alarm, or waking up before my alarm, I’m still spilling words out onto a page, whether on a page or a screen. It’s still coming from me. It’s still mine.

Take away my words, and there’s nothing left but hollow bone.

Love&hugs, Meg<3