Writing Bravely on Sundays

I’m back… for what feels like the thousandth time.

I have to thank my awesome mom for inspiring me to give this website thing another go. We’ve been collaborating today, writing together at my big corner desk in my home office.

It feels good. Because I have ADHD, “body doubling” with someone helps me be productive when I’m feeling scattered. I’ve gotten a lot better at just writing, not over-editing myself, and keeping things simple… but something like writing a blog still feels oddly ambitious. Having my mom here, working on her own website, is comforting–like a hot mug of tea on a cool, dark morning.

Every Tuesday, we get together for breakfast at a local donut shop we adore. We talk about life, the universe, and everything in between. Recently, we had an idea for a series of posts we could write together for her blog, Women Writing Wrongs. And just a couple weeks later, here we are: making it happen.

Another push I sorely needed came from a couple writing workshops I was able to participate in for free through my university. One was Ms. Magazine‘s workshop for feminist scholars, which they provided for members of WSG South. The other was a workshop by the Op-Ed Project.

Together, the two workshops helped me find my power as a writer in a way I never had before. And right after that experience, I stumbled upon and devoured Dr. Devon Price‘s book, Unmasking Autism. That book reminded me of who I was before society taught me to hide my passion.

I realized I’d been censoring myself a lot more than I needed to, making myself smaller, writing based on what I thought people might say if I wrote authentically. No more. I’m entering what the facilitator of the Op-Ed Project workshop, Angela Wright, called a brave space: a place where you may not feel safe, but you do grow by putting yourself out there.

Thanks to the feminist scholars workshop facilitator, Aviva Dove-Viebahn, I’ve already written one article for Ms. on a piece of media I absolutely love (HBO’s The Last of Us) and how it explores an issue dear to my heart: Reproductive Justice. I have a couple more article ideas in the works, and I hope to contribute many more!

I can’t do that unless I sit down and write. Consistently. Boy, is that hard to do while having ADHD, but the more I do something, the more it becomes part of me. I used to write poetry every day when I was a teenager, even if it was just a random line or two scrawled in the margin of my math notebook.

So, I’m declaring it: my Sundays are now for writing boldly and fearlessly. Today, a couple blog posts. Tomorrow, who knows?

If you enjoyed this post, comment with something you’re going to do to work toward your goals! I want to spend more time writing, but maybe for you it’s going for a run every morning, signing up for that professional development course you’ve been dying to try, or something else entirely. Let’s hear it!