Learning to Eat my Inner Broccoli

Since I moved to Ohio, I've been reveling in my inner broccoli. No, not the little bland green trees that my kids mysteriously love, but that other broccoli, the one that Anne Lamott refers to in Bird by Bird. I've been sitting for hours on end at coffee shops, pen poised above my notebook's blank page, giving free rein to that little voice inside of me.

I've let that voice take control. It used to whisper but now it speaks with authority. It states decisively:

• you're trite.
• you're banal.
• you're boring.
• you're blah.
• you're whiny.
• you're angry.
  
• you have nothing to say.
• you might as well put the pen down and stop fooling yourself. 

When I manage to silence it for a few minutes, I eke out a few paragraphs, fill a page or two in my notebook before reaching for the sweet temptation of Twitter and its finite 140 character escape.

They say that writing is a lonely occupation, that it's just you and the blank page, and six months ago I would have agreed. Back in New Jersey, I spent hours every week filling page after page with memoir and fiction. It just poured out of me effortlessly, leaving me refreshed and elated. But I now realize that what kept me grounded, what kept that inner broccoli at bay was the support of my writing group.

We met every Tuesday at 9:30 to talk and write. We took turns leading the group, challenging each other with different types of writing exercises. And at the end of every meeting, we read aloud for a few minutes. There's something about coming out of the notebook, about hearing my words aloud, seeing others nod, smile, and even tear up because of a story I've written that just fills me up. It gives me the strength to chop down that broccoli, to see the little nuggets of gold buried amongst the drivel.

I've been searching for a writing group here while trying to establish some sort of routine in this new world. I haven't found one yet, but I know I will, when I least expect it. And until I do, I'm going to continue facing my inner demons at the coffee shop until I figure out how to eat my broccoli to silence it.

This week's Writing Well Challenge at Write of Passage was Broccoli.. Today, take a few minutes to be still and quiet. Listen to your inner voice and write what she/he says. That's it. Whatever it is that's in there, let it out.

And that's just what I did.