Hello. I have no idea what I'm doing. Not true. I have a modicum of knowledge. A teensy bit. A knowledge sugar cube. At times I'm solid and edgy, with an excellent and gritty structure.  And at other times, you can drop me in hot water, and I'll completely dissolve.

     You won't even find me at the bottom of the cup. If you have checked my "cup" recently, you'll see piles of update-less goo disguised by impressive, photoshopped, book covers (shout out to me and the $11.99 a month I pay to edit those).

     The sugar cube is my writing knowledge.

     My cup is Wattpad.

     My life—warm, dark, murky coffee. Mostly decaf.   

     Welcome to: "Writing Blahz."

     It's been four years since I played in the Wattpad sandbox (or any sandbox). Four years of neglecting the one thing that regenerates my mushy, chicken-nugget-loving, easily distracted, dank, creative soul. Not that I'm dead inside. My soul, since birth, in its entirety, is metaphoric Swiss Cheese. I'm not even Swiss, and I've spent the last 30 years finding those missing pieces. Fulfillment is not always tangible, though. For me, "missing" meant lacking life experience. 

     I had a lot of those holes to fill. Still do.

     Don't misunderstand. I never stopped writing.  I dabbled during my hole-filling, experience-seeking, four-year sabbatical. I went to college for a hot second, wrote essays. I fell in love, wrote poems. I broke up with a best friend and wrote sad zingers. Zingers artfully disguised as poems, because I like to trick people with pretty covers.  What I didn't do was integrate.

     Or engage.

     I got engaged. But that's another "Writing Blahz" entry.

     If this introduction sounds disjointed. Good. That's how I feel. During the past four years, my writing career (because that's what it is to me, I'm not just exercising my fingers on this keyboard) has taken a passive backseat. I got so hooked on new life experiences and cataloged them away in my "for a story" brain Rolodex, I forgot to integrate actual writing with my evolving self.

     Which is why I'm here.  I say "here" like I've stepped off a plane onto the airport tarmac of a new and inviting place, probably someplace with elk, when, in reality, I'm lost. In the last four years, the dissident parts of myself held at bay for so long have taken me over. Number one, I'm lazy. Is procrastination a mental illness? We need to medicate that shit. Number two, I'm a perfectionist with necrotic self-doubt and unbelievably high personal standards. (Only for creative output. I ate brownies for breakfast this morning, and they weren't even good). Number three, I'm afraid. And to add a cherry on top, I've also worked out I'm one of those special 4.4 adult ADHD percenters.

     (Spoiler alert.)

     Writing is hard for me.

     At this point in my existence, it feels impossible. I don't know who I am as a writer anymore, and that's the ugly, uncool truth. 

     It's depressing and terrifying. But what do writers love more than angst?

     Snacks.

     And cats.

     But that's another entry.

     The truth is, we love snacks and cats and deveining our emotions with words. To reconnect my amps, I need to understand my new creative self on and off the paper. But mostly on paper.  "Writing Blahz" is a therapy pad, a progress journal, a space to decorate in as many screaming reds as my corked writing-brain needs to burst free again. I'll even add some blue to mellow.

     If you've made it this far, my name is Robyn Marie. I was an avid horror novelist and speculative fiction loyalist. I drank green tea, was single and had a pet hamster.  I won a 2016 Watty, guest wrote for several anthologies, had a contract with TNT network, killed it in contests (like three, but whatever), did a stretch as a Wattpad Ambassador, and rubbed noses with Watt's finest bunnies. I even, on occasion, was paid for the nonsense I made up,  hashtag "goals."

     Now it's 2020, the year testing all novelists with fire. Who can top the shit we're living in? Imaginations are working double-time to do better (pro-tip, introverts are winning). My name is still Robyn. I do not have a hampster. I graduated to cats and a husband. Green tea? Probably should start drinking it again. Horror genre? Maybe. Speculative fiction?—is a pretentious term I will always enjoy. But I've accomplished no forward motion when it comes to my writing career. Those spaces are blank.

     I still have holes in my Swiss Cheese.

     My penchant for food metaphors might be indicative of other problems, non-pen-to-paper related. But if my writing ability and knowledge are a sugar cube, I don't want it to show up some days sturdy and square and then vanish the next. Writing should sweeten my life, not fade into the dregs. When it dissolves, I should taste it.

     Writing won't always be sweet—salty from tears, maybe, or blood—but it's the infusion I'm after. The seamless comingle of work, creativity, and life. In these chapters, I plan to camp out until I own myself. (I won't be easy to subdue; I ate five lead-weight brownies this morning.) There are questions that paralyze me: Who am I creatively? What is my process now? What is my next step to achieving the one dream I've always had?

     I need answers.

     Welcome to: "Writing Blahz."

     I hope you'll join me on this introspective trip. Roam around. Dig up a body, or a snack. I refuse to believe the struggle to reconnect with your writing-self is mine alone. Consider this your invitation to the therapy pad.

     To quote Curt Smith and that other guy, "Shout, shout, let it all out." I hope we can both do that together.

      Congratulations to me, this is the first 1,000 words I've successfully written in four years.  I hope you'll hang around to read 1,000 more.