The Most Dangerous Writing App, My Life as a House

The Most Dangerous Writing App was introduced to me in practice by a recent workshop I attended, which was an X-R-A-Y class, created by the Wildcats Write Together Group. You set a timer and you can’t stop writing for more than a few seconds, or it deletes everything you have written.

So, I’ve only used it a few times so far, and I think this is a super valuable tool for writers to get moving and potentially even find some fresh ideas. I also think this could be a great tool for anyone who needs to process something they’re working through and maybe needs to type into a void that will get deleted instead of immediately text-reacting to someone who has triggered you. Self-regulation and getting unstuck in my writing? A win!

In a practice of rejecting perfectionism, I’m posted the unedited 5 minutes below (eek!). My Life as a House, inspired by my brother’s most recent post.

My life as a house. First, is the front door. The front door that is constantly changing color, changing material, shape-shifting. Over the years, the view to the front door has changed. There were years you couldn’t even see the front door. Obscured from view by thorny plants. Great Expectations Havisham. There were steel doors, locked doors, always locked doors. I don’t know that I ever had an unlocked door back then. Definitely never open. I wanted to have an open door, but it just wasn’t something I could do. Within the house, the foyer, I suppose. The foyer was like Jumanji in the middle of a game, vines twining around the bannister stairs. I imagined that it would be dark and endless. The lights dimly coming on and off. Again, this is the haunting of the mind. The creation of a story of a life, haunted. These are the choices that we make mixed with the subterranean of the mind and who’s to know what’s real then. I suppose that’s something that’s always in the back of my mind and the back of my house. What is real? What is created? What is a memory? Can we ever really be sure? I do know that the processing of remodeling the house of my life has been something that will always be in progress. We are always weeding the garden, we are always weeding backyard, we are always repainting and reshedding the walls of ourselves. It’s something that’s inevitable as we evolve. I imagine that I could have a house with a hundred floors because I never want to banish any of them away again, I never want to lock the doors, I want everyone, all the parts, all the rooms, all the air, to move freely. Nothing forsaken. Nothing exiled. Always welcome.