Dear Reader,

For the past week, I have been feeling ennui. That’s a fancy word that here means blah. Just blah.

And I didn’t know why. It’s finally fall in Houston, at least our version of fall. Thanksgiving is around the corner, I’m in full fledged grading marathon mode, and the podcast is doing well.

But I couldn’t shake off this feeling of listlessness.

Usually when this happens, it means I need to get out of town. And I do. I need a short weekend jaunt somewhere but…Thanksgiving…grading…etc.

I’ve been combing cabin rentals and flight costs all week to places I know I’m not going to. I’ve also been thinking about when was the last time I finished reading a book or, hello, can I return to my own?

It’s been too long since I’ve written. Okay, it’s been a week! A long week but I don’t think that’s causing my ennui. Still need to write though.

It wasn’t sure what was going on until I needed to prepare for my writing group.

I started my local writing group in August of this year after wanting more of a writing scene in my neck of the woods. We meet monthly. It’s growing a bit which is exciting.

Usually, I put together a full agenda for the group. A full agenda, do you hear me? With announcements and the whole thing. I planned when each meeting was and even asked one of my friends to come and give us a talk.

It’s a lot. Calendars are involved. I wanted this to do well and wanted it to grow.

But I forgot the fundamental thing — know my audience. All they wanted to do was write. As usual, I was doing extra, more than what was required. I’m like that, this is something I know about myself. I am extra. You want me to write a paragraph, I’ll write page. Need a page? I’ll give you a paper, annotated and cited and definitely well designed.

And that is what I was doing. But this last meeting, all I did was provide prompts. No elaborate meeting notes, no reminders for next meeting. All I did was create prompts from them to do.

And it was the best meeting ever. Just the joy of writing and discovering.

Sometimes, to find joy, you just have to take it back to basics. That right there was the lesson in all this.

Hoping you’re finding joy,

~Icess