Muse Ariadne - 01 - 02/09/24

"write about what ways writing plays a role in your life-- why do you like it? is it hard? what's your relationship with it? be as abstract or direct as you'd like."

Up until very recently, I was completely uninterested in writing. The only thing I'd ever write were shitty essays for my AP tests; I hadn't dedicated any time to writing beyond what was necessary to pass my classes. However, in recent months, writing has become a part of my daily routine and although it's not something I put much thought or effort into, I enjoy writing a lot - it brings me joy and peace of mind.

I suppose it started with coding. I decided to learn basic HTML and CSS sometime in early June of 2023. For a while I didn't have any idea what I would even blog about. In fact, the first website I created, the now defunct daisyfennec.neocities.org, was deleted because it stayed for some months as an empty shell of a website with very little content. It was actually a pretty cute wesbite with styling more intricate than my current dogblog, but I couldn't figure out what I wanted to write about, and the dead links on daisyfennec brought me unreasonable amount of stress ... lol. So at the end of the summer, after training and working as a camp counselor, I eradicated daisyfennec from the internet and created dogblog.

I must have found some mental clarity up in the trees while I was at camp, because I found it easier to blog and develop my new website from then on. I fell in love with creating webpages and increasing my skills with web design. Above all, I simply fell in love with writing code! I don't share many of my projects here online, but I've also experimented with creating video games using python and lua. I find it satisfying and fun to type lines of code, and it's all the more satisfactory to run a program and find that everything works as smoothly as I'd like it to. It took some months for me to really get into writing my actual blog, but now it is also something that I enjoy greatly. I truly feel that my interest in coding sparked my interest in writing. I met a friend who's a poet at camp. Her father is a computer science professor, or something. One time he told her [and then she told me] that he thinks coding is sort of like writing poetry. I personally would be inclined to agree. Coding is artful, eloquent, and methodical, just like poetry is.

There's plenty more to be said about that poet friend! She was definitely also influential in the development of my appreciation for writing. One thing is that I really enjoy reading her poetry; she's a fantastic writer. As an effect of my interest in her writing, of course I began to take interest in reading poetry in general. I never enjoyed reading before I sought out poetry, but now it's something I utterly love. I don't write poetry myself, but I do find that it inspires me simply to write in general. It's provocative!

Another thing is that I write this friend of mine letters. We live pretty far apart. It used to be moderately far apart, think an hour's drive or so, but now we're very far apart, think a couple states or so. A mail truck is like a time machine and a few hours' or states' distance is a lovely course for time travel. I love writing letters. I fucking loove casual penpal shit. I also send her drawings and tea, but that's besides the point. I write Abby about anything I want to talk about in a longer form. A letter is like a conversation where you have to imagine how the other party responds.

We've established my infatuation with my blog and with letters. There's one more part that makes up my personal trinity of Things I Like To Write, and that's my journal! I started journaling January 20th of this year, 2024. I've been journaling every morning in my [acursed] AP Spanish class. My journal is where I recount the things around me, and specifically the things that are beautiful or simply thought-provoking. My journal is a practice of mindfulness and grounding. Januscary was a genuinely wretched month for me, and journaling gave me some peace of mind at least once per day. It's something I really needed, so I'm glad I started journaling, I really enjoy it, and I look forward to continuing to journal. I plan to start scanning and uploading some journal pages to my site soon as another section of the blog page, so look out for that!

It feels like I've really just discovered writing. More accurately, I've just discovered my love for it. Writing so much has been really healing for me in the past few months. I'm not exactly good at writing, of course - I'm really wordy and I've got no flow. But I don't really care about that. I'm writing just for me, because I like it. Even if I upload bits and pieces to my blog or I send pages to my friend, really, it's for me. I write so many more blog posts than I ever upload, so many more journal entries than I'll ever scan, and so many more letters than I'll ever send. In the month of January alone I nearly filled my brand new spiral notebook solely with letters and journal entries. I feel such a strong sense of security having all of these documents, digital and physical, because I feel like there's some part of me now that will be left behind. For the denizens of the internet to find, but more importantly for another version of me to find, when I'm old. Or young but older. I want to keep leaving pieces of myself behind as long as there are more versions of me to go around. I really feel afraid when I think about forgetting things. Writing is just so timeless!

I think I'm running out of things to say. And I also think you get the gist. I love to write and I want to keep writing and writing and writing. It took me so long to get to this point but now I can't get enough! Thanks for reading, anyone.

Now you've seen another piece of my mind. See you when next week's prompt is out.

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