Not under. Not over. Just whelmed. Where what you get back is more than you expect – but you can deal with it.
I wrote something approaching a poem last night – and had a message back from a friend in less then ten minutes. I was whelmed. Certainly not underwhelmed (comment is useful, when you’re unsure what others make of what you write), yet not overwhelmed either.
I guess part of what has changed is that I know I can write. Whether I write well, whether I write on topic, whether I’m growing as a writer…well, those are things I can work through by – funnily enough – writing.
But writing a poem is a step further. It’s one thing to offer your gentle reader an inner monologue, on screen – but poetry feels somehow more personal. It says: these are words, striving for beauty and balance.
I used to write poetry. Quite a lot. I wrote in my teens. I wrote at sunset in particular, which I love for the quality of light and the feelings of wistfulness that fit rather nicely with writing.
In my late teens, things changed. I lived abroad. I started university, and started spending a lot more time with my peers. I came to faith. Â And somewhere, amid all these changes, the poetry stopped.
It’s easy to write somewhat angst-ridden poetry when you’re in your teens, spending a lot of time on your own, and unsure of what will happen when you grow up. Â But if that is what you know how to write, changing those variables can mean that you don’t know what to write about.
One thing that I did learn from that kind of writing experience was the feeling when inspiration strikes. For someone who loves words, it is a blissful feeling, when the direction of the words, the choice of them, flows.
What I’m working with now is putting in the writing time – the craft to support the art. But it can be easier to keep hammering away at the craft aspect – making a range of different things.
To try for something that is more about art – poetry – is harder. Partly because now, having got used to writing in public, if I want to do the art thing, it feels like something that has a place in being public too. (It doesn’t have to be, of course. But that’s where the tug is right now.)
So thanks, friend, for spotting the tilt at poetry. Thanks for helping me think more about why I wrote it before, why I might choose to write it again.
It’s not just the writing – whatever the writing – it’s also the interaction. I didn’t really have that, in the days of teenage writing. I like it. So all in all, whelmed is a good place to be.
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Another go? Yeah. Why not.