What happens when you stand in your shadow and still choose to shine? What happens if you remember the light?
I’m opening with the closing for this piece and with news: NaNoWriMo closes, and AWA opens a new door, a window if you will. Join the marvelous AWA team for a month of WriteOn! writing. They’ve organized writing hours across many time zones, welcoming writers everywhere to show up, breathe, and move forward.
What happens when you write with others? Expect your writing lung to fill with air, then feel the oxygen and energy course through your words.
I wrote in group today in a session much like what you’ll experience during WriteOn! This is what I found when I explored the generative prompt I shared with participants.
Defying the Shadows
Shadows dance beneath forest canopies and multiply in the light of lamp-lit rooms.
His shadow surprised me. Sharp even among the dancing shadows of leaves, he completely blocks light, in the forest, in the rooms. Or does he draw the light out of the spaces he enters?
I’ve heard stories that tell of the dark shadows, unsettling emotions: a humbling, a tremorous exchange, an awe-struck encounter.
Should I be afraid?
Probably.
Instead, I’m annoyed. This black hole consumes light, stifles the dance of leaf shadows, prompts others to shrink.
I take a deep breath, fill my lungs with air and my heart with courage, reach for my light.
You just try taking my light! Just try blocking my joy!
I don’t speak the words out loud. They are stitched on my face. I stand defiant in his giant shadow, turn on my insistent, stubborn light.
I smile.
Not because, “His shadow!”
I smile because I feel the joy of my light, I remember how to shine.
Sure, I defy. Take that, why don’t you?
But mostly, I remember the light I carry.
Remember the Light and WriteOn! this November
If your light needs rekindling, join me and others in the AWA WriteOn! sessions this November. Write in community. Remember your light.
©Pennie Nichols. All Rights Reserved. 2025
Love this. I just wrote about my resistance to fall. Then slept on it. Woke up with the realization that I needed to add light to it. A tinge of hope. It’s easy to get lost in the shadows. And so important to remember there’s light within reach.
We’ve all got them, don’t we? xox
Wiled the pen…an important phrase for all writers. No more than ever was need to speak out, with heart and soul. We need to call out lies and wrongs. Being a writer must mean TRUTH at some level. Yes we can create, but within our creation should always come truth, an acknowledgement of the the good paths to follow.
Our world needs all the light it can get these days. I love this piece about those shadows that are on the edge, and sometimes within, all our lives.
Indeed. And I try to wield my pen like a light, as I know you do.