“I wanted to be a writer,” she said, her voice going quiet. “But I got stuck, years ago, and now I feel like that part of me is cemented over.”
We’d met randomly, in the audience at a production of Hamlet, and started talking in that way you do with strangers who love the same things you love.
She had an enviable life–apartments in two great cities, celebrity friends from the creative class, tickets to all the best shows, she even had cool shoes–and yet when I told her I was a writer, something shifted. She went still. She traveled back in time to a version of herself that she’d almost managed to erase…but not quite.
“I was a journalist, but I wrote a short story once,” she confessed. She remembered every detail of that story that had meant so much to her.
The story had her flying high, but when well-meaning friends started to ask, “When’s the novel coming?”, she got stuck. There was a vision of ‘being a writer’ she couldn’t make happen, and it derailed her dream, entirely.
To Thine Own Self Be True
I have versions of this conversation, often.
Perhaps you do too if you have the courage to introduce yourself as a writer. (And for the record, ‘a writer’ is someone who writes. Not someone who has been published. Not someone who has won awards. Someone who writes.)
When the woman beside me said, “I feel like that part of me is cemented over,” I could almost see the pain radiating from her.
I wanted to hug her.
I wanted to tell her it’s never too late.
I wanted to tell her about all the wonderful writers and writing spaces out there, places she could find support to nurture her inner writer again; people who would help her rediscover the joy of being someone who creates.
But then the lights went down and we were transported by the work of other creatives–the ones who never gave up, who put the work together, and themselves out in front of an audience.
We watched, while they created.
I wondered if my new friend was laying down a fresh layer of cement, or allowing her longing to create to crack open that shell.
I suspect it was more cement.
I bet she told herself to ignore the tug of creativity. That it was too late anyway. That it was enough to go on consuming other people’s work. That her feelings didn’t matter.
To Be, or Not To Be?
And that’s the worst part.
That is why I come back, year after year, create this challenge anew, and put myself out there to promote it.
Because so many people have been told that if they’re not producing commercially successful writing, if they don’t get lucky enough to find an agent and a publisher for that work at the exact right moment and become a best-selling author, that there is no point in them trying to write.
So many people learn accept a life where they quiet their own desires; tell themselves that their feelings don’t matter…just because they can’t–or don’t want to–go pro with their writing.
Or because they had some success, but not enough to impress the naysayers in their life.
But when we cement over our feelings in one area of our lives, we teach ourselves to do it in other areas too. We learn to live a partial life, where our desires don’t matter.
We learn to settle for a lesser version of ourselves.
And I don’t want that for you.
Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t
Writing a story a day in May is a ridiculous idea…and that’s the point.
The point is to write with abandon. To give yourself permission. To learn to come back to your desk regardless of the quality of the previous day’s writing. To put your creative self first for a few minutes every day for a month.
If you can do that, you’ll discover playfulness still has a place in your life. You’ll begin to see ideas everywhere, and the world will become an endlessly engaging place. And you’ll have a tool to wield when waves of inevitable envy roar in, as you see other people achieve traditional, visible success: you’re in the game. You’re writing.
More than that, you’ll be a better person: You’ll think deeply about what makes humans act the way they do, and in so doing you’ll uncover hidden depths of compassion and empathy. You’ll get to right wrongs, and fight for justice in your stories and perhaps inspire readers to do the same in real life.
In all of this work, you’ll spend a little time each day in tune with the values that matters most to you.
The Readiness Is All
Soon I’ll begin running my Warm Up Campaign again – five tiny tasks each week to get you ready for an outpouring of creativity during the StoryADay Challenge.
Sign up now and I’ll send you the StoryADay Keep Writing Workbook today, an interactive method for keeping your excitement levels high during your next project so you can continue to grow, as a writer.
Then, next month, I’ll send you all the warm up exercises as we limber up for the StoryADay challenge.
Let’s play!
