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I managed to come in right before the storm broke; that's lucky. It was cold this morning and it's only gotten steadily colder. Now it's raining, but I am very comfortable indoors with a raspberry chai.

I have not been comfortable with my creative self lately. I think it may be because I have begun to go into different directions and want to feel free to go in those directions, or any direction, because that for me is creativity, total freedom. I knew I was going to work on this today, so I thought about it a lot, and I realized that I've been making a lot of incorrect assumptions about how I used to be.

For one thing, I have always struggled to express my inner workings and longings and really, I did not struggle more with this than in college. I was faced with many pressures inhibiting my freedom of expression with my environment, my peers, my life situation. Many things I wrote during that time were unadventurous, though I forced myself to write, and it was much more difficult than it is now.

The problem now is really a lot more positive. I believe I have gained the ground back that I lost in college, and I am ready to go further, but I really have no precedent. I am not satisfied creatively with only writing and slugging through trying to get my writing published. Having my work published legitimizes it, but I realize now that I am just not feeling that. Rather than force it as I did in college I'm ready to venture out and expand my modes of expression and free myself as much as possible from needing to fit into specified molds.

For one thing, I would be totally happy to write for this journal, as long as I live. It will be a legacy. It will continue on when I am gone, given the same certainties and uncertainties that print holds. I want to feel like I need an editor to channel my work into a polished piece, but I am just not interested in that right now. It may be that when I mature and feel more certain of my message, I will have some reason to make that effort.

I find there are other channels for my creative expression that have nothing to do with writing but also tell stories. One of these things is my photography. I have avoided putting that on this site for the most part because I didn't feel like it suited the purpose of Winter Light, but I have come to see this journal as a space for me to express myself as well as I can.

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