Back home, blogging to you

I wanted to blog last night, but I didn’t want to pay $11 for another day of Internet service at the hotel to do it, so here I am, back home, just stepped in the door, and I’m blogging to you.

Although, to be honest, I can’t remember what it was exactly that I so urgently wanted to share. 

It wasn’t any one particular thing, more like a feeling, a waking up. 

As you know, I’ve been struggling with my adult manuscript for some time now and went to SIWC feeling very mixed, and wondering what would happen when the end of November came and this bout of Meg-the-public-writer was over?  After taking this necessary break, would I would be able to dive back into the work?  Would I want to?

See, I agreed to do SWIC (Surrey Writers International Conference) because it is a way to give back to the writing community.  A way to try to pass on, what I have discovered, what helps me. 

What I didn’t expect, was to come away from the workshops that I did, so inspired.  The pieces people wrote, the depths that they were willing to plumb, how I would give them the exercise, in this crowded room and they would hunch over their notebooks and start scribbling on the page.  And the work that came out of those snatched moments with the pen, was truly humbling.  So wide open and brave and true. 

And so, I went there to give, to share, to be generous, and instead, I was the one who left the conference feeling full of hope and possibilities and the remembrance of why we write.  All of us. 

Gazing on those passion filled faces, writing like their life depended on it, and in a way it does.  Seeing what power and fear it invokes when we allow ourselves to speak our truths as we know them. 

I’ve been feeling, lately, like somebody switched the light off, and I’d been fumbling around in the dark, not sure of who I would see if ever the light was switched back on. 

Well, the light is on, and I see me, Meg.  A writer. 

Thank you.  Your passion and willingness to dive off the cliff, reminded me of why I return to the page, day after day, your love for grabbing the needed and necessary words, reintroduced me, to my own.

                          * * *

(And on a totally different subject… Sarah, thank you again for the beautiful scarf, such a jumble of colors, all my favorite.  It has been around my neck for only three hours and already I have received two compliments on it.)

Posted by Meg Tilly on Sunday, October 26, 2008 in Chewing the Fat