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If Journaling Isn’t For You, Try Poetry
The constraints of haiku made writing for myself feel safe
I am an early riser — early enough to see a pink sky. Most mornings have the same rhythm: I feed my two cats, Kiki and Gigi, and then I pour myself a cup of coffee, brewed automatically at 5am. I add a generous splash of milk. Mug in hand, I sit down with my notebooks and computer, and I write for thirty minutes at least.
My early morning ritual is sacred. Coffee and writing grounds me and prepares me to show up for myself and others for the rest of the day. My morning writing practice has taken shape over the course of the last three years and it was born from a call to write that I have repeatedly heeded since adolescence. But as much as this practice is for me, my writing seldom is.
For as long as I can remember the only way I felt safe to write was to write with an audience in mind. Historically writing for myself—journaling in my case—has been an overwhelmingly emotional experience rife with triggers. But always being aware of an audience and giving yourself to them can become draining as well. By early summer, after the publication of my first book, it had.
If my writing ritual is for me, that begs the question, why keep going if it’s draining? The answer is, historically, I don’t. But I didn’t…
