The irresistible urge to write

‘If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last.’ – Naguib Mahfouz.

Oh, how I’ve missed writing. You have no idea.

The tap of my fingers on the keys as I type. Melodic, rhythmic, making something, making words appear in black against the white background, making a story, pinning down a memory, a thing to share with you.

I’ve even missed screwing up my eyes when I can’t be bothered to fetch my glasses. Squinting against the blur as my eyesight continues to fail, slowly but surely.

I gave up writing for a short time so that I could focus on improving my coding. It was a few months. It felt longer.

Forcing myself to step back from How The Mind Wanders… and actively focus as much of my spare time as possible on coding was really hard. I’m not going to lie, I’ve struggled with coding. JavaScript is proving difficult for me to wrap my head around. Will I ever be good enough to do this for a living? I worry that I won’t be.

And am I passionate about it? I’m not even sure. It’s something that I find interesting. It’s useful to know, definitely. But I’m not sure if I’d describe myself as passionate about coding.

I’m sure, however, that I’m passionate about writing. Taking an enforced break proved that to me. I love writing. It makes me happy. It is as simple as that.

So what is going to happen now?

Well, I can safely say I’ll never go as long again posting so little. How The Mind Wanders… remains my baby. Whilst I want to code and perhaps make a living out of web development (keep your fingers crossed I am good enough!), my blog is going to be back among my top priorities for the rest of this year.

Remember way back in January when I laid out my ambitions for the year? Well, it can be safely said that I have learnt and am continuing to learn code. But that big important ambition I mentioned, the final one in the list? Yeah, that one… Where I said I was going to write more… That hasn’t really happened.

It’s been for a good reason. I can justify why I’ve written less, instead of more. But now it’s time to fulfil another one of those ambitions on that list. This blog needs some end-of-year content and I need to start sharing my stories again.

The urge to write is irresistible. I have so much I want to tell you all. So now I’m going to realise that ambition and write more. All the stories that I’ve been storing away – they’re coming. Keep your eyes peeled! They’re definitely coming.