Friday & Favourites Vol. 23
loneliness doesn't get better with age
Hello friends,
The hair on our heads is shapeshifting, turning to silvery snakes even as we speak. As we move through September, we have reached the week in which each of our birthdays fall. We are not feeling our age, though. One more year around the sun is more poems and more life, but we do not yet feel the weight of years. The birthday is a moment in time, changing nothing as it passes us by.
I (Emily) met Julia in a Facebook group over a year ago. I was a lonely poet emerging out of my living room cave. The landscape was barren and no other poets were in sight. I took to the interweb to find myself a critique partner. Julia responded to my desperate plea, and it turned out that she was looking for a writing friend as well. Since then, we have been writing together, and soon after we started this Substack, which keeps us writing together regularly!
Oftentimes writing looks like staring up in the sky for hours, hoping that God will send me words through one of his biblically accurate angels or something. Some days I do not feel like continuing to write, because between homeschooling and life in general, my brain cells start to dwindle. Having a writing partner helps because there is always someone to confide in and get inspiration from, and sometimes, we come up with writing projects on the spot.
The writing life consists of waking up every day to do the same tasks, putting words on a page that might not even make it through revision. It can be lonely and tedious, like pushing a slab of marble up the hill, envisioning Michelangelo’s David, but ending up with a urinal instead. But a writing community keeps the mundane task of writing feeling fresh and alive. It is a safe place to share your writing, because your writing friends know your writing well, and can help you improve your craft. Neither of us have a higher education in creative writing, but through our partnership, we’ve created a space where we are motivated to learn and grow.
Another added benefit is that a collab partnership forces us to write when we do not feel like writing, it keeps us going every week as writers. I know even if I am not writing a lot personally, I still have to show up for our writing projects. It is a vocation, a job, and a friendship.
Who had blessed your writing journey? Share this post with them! And if you don’t have a writing friend, we encourage you to find one. Local writers groups, libraries, online communities, can all be good places to commiserate with other writers.
In celebration of our collaboration, we’ve compiled a list for you of our personal favourite poems we’ve worked on.
Our Favourite Collaborative Projects:
May you have a blessed week!
“It can be lonely and tedious, like pushing a slab of marble up the hill, envisioning Michelangelo’s David, but ending up with a urinal instead.”
What a sentence! You nailed it.
Definitely requires community…