Without further ado, today I am featuring Shannen Coley and her occupation of writing.
Shannen aims to write a little everyday. She says, “Sometimes only a phrase or two. Sometimes I write for a few hours. I write in anything. I have probably at minimum 5 books started, several hundred poems stored in my notes app on my iPhone, and multiple journals full of short stories. Although I enjoy writing blog posts and IG captions that articulate meaning, those are not as meaningful to me as my daily practice of the writings that as of now for the most part I do not share with others.”
When asked what she gets out of it, she replied, “I write to collect moments. To collect stories. To collect memories and feelings. It’s how I bottle up them all. I store them in my words and in pages upon pages so that I can go back and relive them. My journals are narratives of my life-how I view the world and my reflections of how the world might view me.”
She goes on to say, “Writing for me- means peace and clarity. For now, 80% of the time I write for myself – meaning that only I see it. Writing is my compass that offers me a sense of direction. Writing is there for me in each fork of the road, allowing me to both reflectively and retrospectively understand my environment. Writing paves the way for me in each of life’s significant transitions as well as amidst life’s smallest moments. Writing is my escape from anxieties and simultaneously is the medium I use to face my anxieties. When I write out my stressors, they are no longer building up inside me; I get to see them on paper and satisfyingly scratch them out one by one. Writing means so much to me. In the future, if the pages align -I hope to publish a narrative style fiction novel of some sort.”
