Wallowing. It’s a word that evokes both pleasure and pain. You might wallow in luxury or in self-pity, in hedonistic pleasure or in suffering and sorrow.
One of my favorite Victorian genre writers, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, described the process of learning how to write as “wallowing in ink.” It’s such an evocative description, capturing the highs and lows of the writing process in one colorful metaphor. I haven’t been able to shake it since I stumbled across it in her memoir.
So, of course, I’ve stolen it.
And I’m using it as a way to start blogging again.
Every month, here, I’ll be talking about stories and media and other things I’m wallowing luxuriously in. I’ll share the parts of the writing process that have me as happy as a pig (or, idk, probably a dog?) in a mud puddle. And I’ll also talk about that other, less glamorous or comfortable, kind of wallowing: the struggle to put words on the page in a way that works. The imposter syndrome that hits, like clockwork, at certain stages.
That’s it. That’s the post – I’m making this sticky at the top of the blog so anyone who wanders here aimless and uninformed will know what they’re getting themselves into. 😉
