On Valentine’s Day, Snow, and Writing

Happy Valentine’s Day. Or Galentine’s Day. Or however you celebrate. You can take all the gooey romantic stuff out of it and view the day as a celebration of love. Or you can get goopy and gooey to your heart’s content. Take your pick.

 Years ago, in my MFA program, novelist Silas House told a friend of mine to love her writing and stick up for it. “But isn’t that being egotistical?” she asked him. (We’ve all met that writer who tells you how great his work is, and then when we read it, not so much.) Silas said there’s a difference between loving your writing and being puffed up about it. Food for thought on this Valentine’s Day. How do you love your writing?  

 One of the cleverest takes on Valentine’s Day and writing that I’ve seen this year came from Heather Demetrious. https://heatherdemetrios.com/ (She always sends out interesting things—highly recommend getting on her list.) Heather wrote https://heatherdemetrios.com/blog/the-five-love-languages-for-writters about the five love languages and how you might use them to love your writing. (In case you don’t know, the five love languages are receiving gifts, acts of service, words of affirmation, quality time, and physical touch.) It’s a fun lens through which to view your work.

 Any time is a good time to ponder how you love your writing, but this day on this year, as we move forward into a lighter time, it’s especially important. It’s looking like life may be back to normal (whatever that is—I can barely remember) sometime this year. How are you going to move forward with your writing? Are you ready to bring it into the world? How will you love it and boost it and support it?

 On a slightly different note, for all of you who live in Portland, Oregon, or nearby, and are currently buried in snow and ice, I take full responsibility and I apologize. Every winter, I wish for snow. We get it rarely here, and I yearn for it, probably because of my memories of fun snow days as a kid.

 As I write this, I’m looking out at piles of snow on top of ice, and icicles hanging from the street light. One of the fun things about Portland is that we often get ice storms. Those are not fun—trees topple, roads and sidewalks are truly impassable, and power goes out. Luckily, we seem to have a mix here today.

I can’t help it, when it snows I’m distracted by it. There’s something about a snow day that is just so fun (likely because we get them so rarely). Luckily, yesterday during my early morning writing session I told myself it was time to take a break from the novel for a day or two, and the snow was the perfect excuse.

 And to bring it back around to our theme of love, that’s a way you can love your writing—take a break from it.  My love language is quality time, as mentioned, so that means I can smother my writing. I push and push and push.  Which then just overwhelms my poor brain. Far, far better to take an intentional break, so at the very least you don’t guilt yourself.

 So, again, Happy Valentine’s Day. Gaze upon your writing with love, my friends.