Oh, the thrill of hiding.
A workshop table covered in images, flowers, a mug of pens, and a harvest coloured table runner.
Rest your eyes! You can listen to this newsletter instead of reading it.
As a kid, I loved playing hide and seek.
I loved the breathless joy of being tucked out of sight, behind a curtain or under a bed, ears pricked for footsteps. I loved the sheer aliveness of being suspended between invisible and visible, waiting for the sudden reveal.
Lately I’ve been thinking about how easy it is to hide our writing.
I can’t tell you how many almost-finished essays and poems I have hidden away on my desktop, quietly languishing. If it weren’t for these newsletters, all my ideas would probably be in there… or in my head, the ultimate hiding place.
Meanwhile, like all of us, I’m getting older.
Life keeps reminding me that I won’t be here forever. And more and more I look at those folders and think — this can’t be what writing is for.
I believe in the exchange of creating and receiving. I believe in the squirmy excitement of being heard. I believe this is the real work of words and language. I walk other people through it, and I’ve seen it save me so many times.
So while I honour that some work — yours and mine — needs to live in the low-light of chosen privacy, I think maybe our ultimate job as writers is to let ourselves be seen.
I’m inspired by buskers and graffiti artists and the kid who walks by my window every morning rapping. I’m inspired by how nature shows up every season with a new buffet of colours and textures and sounds. None of these waited for permission, or for their offering to be flawless. They just added their voice to the symphony, and kept moving.
So how do we begin, especially when we’re stuck or scared?
Writing workshops were my foundation. Long before I started running my own, I would show up, shaky, and go through the cycle — write, share, get feedback, write again. And I would leave electrified. It was alchemical. Everything flowed from there.
There are other ways of course — chapbooks, anonymous blogs, private readings, open mic nights… It’s up to every writer to find the right way to let their work be found.
I have way more to say about this, so I’m devoting our March Hello Writer pack to this, you can subscribe if you want to keep the conversation moving.
You know what… hiding is boring when it’s not tied to being found.
I could have crouched behind the curtains any time, but the game made it special. The next step. Hide and seek.
Whether it’s in a workshop or not, with us or not, I hope you find your own unique ways to move your ideas through you and out into the world, where they can join the symphony too.
In it with you,
