Every time I meet another writer, I always want to know how long they’ve been writing. For me, the answer is wrapped in the realization that I’ve been writing since the last time the Dallas Cowboys won a Super Bowl (all my life). Writing lyrics, writing poems, writing blog posts—some of my earliest memories have involved writing.
It hasn’t always been a smooth journey, though. In school, I seemed to thrive on procrastination, putting off 12-page papers till the night before they were due. Then there was the time in eighth-grade English class when I accidentally turned in one of my raps as homework. My teacher, obviously more of a Biggie fan, gave me a C minus.
Inspiration is everywhere, but it’s not enough. In this fast-paced world, the idea of sitting in a room alone banging on my keyboard, trying to fill all the empty space on my screen, just isn’t appetizing. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t get distracted, that I didn’t pick up my phone and get lost in the scroll. Writing was something I was good at from an early age, but as I grew older, my tendency to procrastinate only got worse. I envy the writers who are disciplined enough that they can write every day at the same time. But that’s not me.
What is me? If I’m being honest, I’m still getting to know myself, and writing has been the lie detector test throughout my years. My most vulnerable times and my proudest moments have come from writing; some of my toughest times have been helped by it. It can be thrilling to see where spilling words onto the page can take me. At the same time, writing is discouraging. It’s lonely.
I once saw an old ratty football shirt that said “IRON SHARPENS IRON.” How do you know how good you can be if you’re not surrounded by the best? How would I know if that procrastination wasn’t really my mind trying to save me from embarrassment? I knew one thing for sure: in my own writing journey, I needed help. So I started showing up to Saturday Scribe, an informal creative writing community that meets in locally-owned coffee shops all over Tulsa—and which, to my amazement, is working for me in ways I couldn’t have anticipated.