Returning to the Page: How Writing Reconnects Me to the Greats

I didn’t expect that returning to writing would feel like returning to a conversation I’d stepped away from mid-sentence. Yet here I am, back at the page, and suddenly I’m in the company of ghosts—the great writers whose words once shaped the way I saw the world and the way I hoped to shape it myself.

Writing again has reminded me of something I once knew instinctively: that the act of creation is also an act of communion. The moment I pick up a pen, I’m touching the same current that ran through Hemingway, Woolf, Angelou—those who understood that writing was less about performance and more about presence.

Hemingway once said, “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” That line keeps circling back as I rediscover my rhythm. Returning to writing means meeting my former self on the page, the one who hesitated more, doubted more, feared more. And suddenly, I get it: the nobility isn’t in competing with anyone else. It’s in showing up again and choosing to grow.

Hemingway also famously said, “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” It’s a line that hits differently now. It doesn’t feel dramatic—it feels accurate. Bleeding is honesty. Bleeding is courage. Bleeding is a declaration that something inside you still wants to live on the page.

What surprised me most about coming back was not the rust or unfinished ideas it was the reconnection. When I sit down now, I feel as though the greats are pulling up chairs around me, nodding in approval simply because I’ve returned. They weren’t waiting for brilliance. They were waiting for presence and integration. The same theme circles around. Our life experiences always bring us what we need.

And that’s the part we can forget as writers: being here is enough. Showing up is enough. The work grows when we allow ourselves to and everything comes at the right time.

If you’re reading this as a writer—seasoned, returning, or just beginning maybe my page is for you as my musings hopefully connects you with yours.

If you want to see more of what I’m working on, I also share snippets of my current writing over on my Instagram page. Come say hi, peek at the creative mess, and connect here as well as we might just find fellow writers riding the same wave.