The Dark Woods: Imposter Syndrome and Using One's Talent for Good, or Why I Haven't and Won't Have as Many Artistic Endeavors to Post about for a Little While
The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic teaches online courses that celebrate traditional tales and everyday magic. The other day, in the newsletter from Sara and Brittany, the brilliant women who run The Carterhaugh School, they said something that I felt in my bones.
...sometimes, things suck. Or, to put it in fairy-tale terms, sometimes, the heroine gets lost in the dark woods and is tested.The dark woods can be so many different things.For us, the dark woods was graduate school.
Hearing a similarly treacherous story from others regarding graduate school helps quiet the voice inside me that still blames my own self, my lack of talent or capability, for the difficult time I had. Knowing I'm not alone is a comfort. It's more, actually. It's a boost.
They survived graduate school by asking themselves, "what we loved most about graduate school. How, we wondered, could we keep these things and still re-enchant our own lives?"
Up til now, I hadn't deliberately asked myself a similar type of questions, but now is as good a time as any.
What do I love most about poetry? How can I keep these things and re-enchant, re-energize my own life?
Well, first, I'm going to change the question. I went to graduate school for poetry, but I obviously love certain fiction work, hence the Jane Austen book club. And most of my books are non-fiction works on subjects I am interested in. Additionally, I love blogging, as evidenced by the 15 years of posts I have gathered on this site and the posts on GlamWitchStyle.com.
So, it's better for me to ask, "What do I love most about writing?"
Using My Talent for Good - Focusing on Political Work
Funny enough, as much as I enjoy creative writing, I also LOVE doing communications work. That's been my (unpaid) part time job since I took on the role of Communications Chair at the RI Democratic Women's Caucus in May 2019. And with so much at stake in the 2020 election, I am really proud that my innate ability to organize information into clear and well organized messaging gets to take center-stage for the time being, while other types of writing steps back a bit.
That's why I won't have too much time to write blog posts here, or to try to publish more of my creative writing.
I know I'm a good writer. And sometimes that takes the form of poetry and blog posts. But for the foreseeable future, it takes the form of political communications to help fight autocracy, and hep fight for women's rights, in the country and in the state I love.