Inkhaven is the name of the 30 day blogging retreat that I went on this month. The rules were: come meet your blogging heroes, post 500 words a day, online, by midnight or we kick you out.
I made it to the final day, but, on purpose, this last post will be fewer than 500 words. My reasons for this are kind of silly, but mostly I think it would be more fun if at least one person failed the program. I’m also writing post as a stream of consciousness, unsure where it will go. Maybe I’ll come up with a better reason if I keep writing.
Every time I write the word “failed” something inside of me winces. Decades of conscientiousness and achievement seeking have trained me to avoid that word at all costs. I think many people come to this realisation at some point in their lives.
I used to think that writing was about perfectly describing the ideas in your head, and ever so gently placing them on the surface of the world so others can see them, in their pristine, final form. In the first half of Inkhaven I learnt that you can write in another way too - where your ideas are shared half formed and open ended. But I also learnt something else. That doing the half formed-sharing thing makes you better at doing the pristine communication too. The only cost is that you need to give up on your previous idea of what failing looks like, and embrace something that looks eerily similar to it.
And if you do fail, so what? What are they gonna do, kick you out?
So close!! You'll get it next year.