Dee Asks: Where Are You Staying Stuck In Your Creative Journey?

Thanks a lot, Dee, for getting all up in my business.Dee, is Denitra Letrice, writer, vlogger, and blog author of Thoughts From The Blue Notebook.  I met Dee, who is from my home state of Connecticut,  through a mutual friend on Facebook, Kelly Quinn.  And, right from the start, I knew I was going to like this woman.  She is simply hilarious, with quips so fast and funny I can't ever really keep up with her--though I appreciate our mostly silly back-and-forth banter spurred by Dee's declaration of it fairly often being time for roller skates, leg warmers and glitter--there's always plenty of glitter.Aside from the laughs, I knew Dee was serious about her writing, and last month she took a challenge from a group of vloggers going by the name of SSVEDA to create and post a video every day during the month of April.  Her musings ranged from talking about her own writing process to sharing about her wonderful daughter, sometimes known as "Shine," whose smile does just that.  The videos always ended with Dee asking, "so, what are you looking at...go write something!"It seems in one of her videos Dee received an epiphany after a talk with her nephew, and decided to, moving forward, focus her blog on collaborating with other writers, creatives, and readers by posting a weekly prompt on Tuesdays for folks to respond to, followed by a vlog the next day, and her own post response to the prompt on Thursdays.  All can contribute by posting their responses either directly in the Comments section under Dee's Thursday post, and/or link to their response on their own blog, video or website, also in the Comments section.

This week's prompt:  Where are you staying stuck?  What is one area in your creative journey where you are Superman standing on your own cape?...

In her vlog, Dee gets it--she knows she makes us bristle with that question.  She gives us a nod, when she says, ..."you all are saying, 'why is Dee getting all up in my business?'..'"And, she's right.  I bristled.  I didn't want to answer.  I wanted to wallow a little bit, and not respond and put off writing a post just for one more day.  See, I've been in a bit of a slump here; not posting as much these past two months as I  have in the past.  I've fallen off the discipline wagon.I don't believe in writers' block.  I don't want to believe in it.  But, I am a bit stuck.  With the blog, I know recently I started getting this feeling that I was getting pulled in different directions--sometimes thinking I had to address all the very serious matters that were going on in the world related to race and racism.  I also think from reading my Twitter feed where I follow many people of color who speak on race (see my piece linked to on The Root on surfing Black Twitter here) tweets can get pretty down on white people, and speak often to white privilege, that it gets hard at times to feel like whatever I might say will be wrong, or coming from this place of privilege, or that I just don't get it, or that...and on and on.I want to get back to being me and sticking to what has always been my motivation for this blog--to talk about race relations from a very personal, story telling, anecdotal point-of-view, and to look at the places where we come together across races and what happens at those intersections.  I want to continue to strive to do this in the most open and honest manner, and to not worry about fumbling, being vulnerable, and making mistakes, because that is how I learn and grow, and hopefully how we all can become closer and understand our differences and similarities, respect those things, and as another friend so eloquently said recently, "see that we're all in this together."As for my other writing--a memoir project, working to get articles and essays published, a book project of poems I've been making daily on facebook created from my friends' status updates, I know what I have to do.  I can only do so much talking with my writing group, taking classes, getting advice from a former teacher.  Here it is.  This time the quote comes from a writing teacher who quoted some author who was asked, "how do you do it?"  The author responded, "Ass to seat....ass to seat."It's time to get back on that discipline wagon, and just get 'er done.  That way, Dee will stop getting all up in my business.So, thanks a lot Dee, for making me get all personal and stuff--but seriously, thank you for your collaborative spirit, and for making us all think about what is getting in the way of our creative journeys.  I can't wait to read the other responses.  I think it's time to put those roller skates on...glitter, please! Photo Source:  Denitra Letrice