Caught Trying
Embarrassment flooded my body after publishing last week’s post. I reread the piece with dismay, seeing muddled concepts and a typo. My thinking in the piece-- which I’d voluntarily exposed in public-- seemed unclear. And the piece lacked focus! Why had I wasted the story of Angela and my documentary in that poorly written post?
Cue the sound of tires screeching. Because that’s when I knew this self-critical voice was verging into the extreme. Reading writers like Maggie Nelson, Suleika Jaouad, and Nadia Bolz-Weber lately has been inspiring and instructive, but judging my work by comparing it to theirs is ridiculous. As my mentor pointed out this week, I am not a professional writer.
For me, writing is a spiritual endeavor. I pray for guidance and inspiration to write what someone needs to see, try to let myself be an instrument for Love, and then release my work into the world. Sometimes my ego wants to take it back. That’s when I need to remember that I’m not only writing for the thrill and pleasure of creativity but also to express through my personal experiences more universal truths of our existence as humans living our finite lives.
The story about Angela was not “wasted” in a piece where the writing was not my best. She came up in my writing when her story came to mind. I asked for Love’s guidance, and I choose to trust it despite my questions and doubts. Faith is verb.
Nothing is wasted, ever. Not if I am curious and mining for meaning.
My personality’s discomfort around self-disclosure, concern about how my writing (and I) will be perceived, ambition to be a good writer and desire to be recognized as one are all real and present every time I sit down to write. I am not alone. Suleika Jaouad recently said that everything she writes has to begin as a handwritten journal entry because she struggles to be truthful when she sits at her laptop, facing a blinking cursor on a blank page.
I am trying to process ideas and feelings, desires and dreams, disappointments and victories, all the lessons. It’s messy, and I’m flawed. And yet I’m still here, proving that the work doesn’t have to be perfect to be valuable, that our stories matter. That you are not alone and your story matters.
What gets in the way of your honest expression and vulnerability?
Thank you for the beautiful post last week and for this one. Here for it 🙏
This piece seems like a journey of self-discovery.
Glad you realized before the end of the piece that "no story is wasted." All knowledge has currency...
FYI: even "professional writers" have typos. Ever read the NYT and WashPost lately?
BTW: I never judge or compare myself to anyone...writers included. However, the only way I know to improve my craft as a writer is to do what the incomparable David Sedaris said about how he started: "At night, I read & reread the handful of books....and eventually, out of boredom as much as anything else, I started to write myself. It wasn't much at first: character sketches, accounts of my day, parodies of articles in the alumni newsletter. Then, in time, I became more ambitious and began crafting little stories about my family....and in time, I completed an entire book, which was subsequently published." he didn't judge or compare. He just learned from the Masters.
But I digress.
Now, to answer your question about the obstacles to honest writing: may I refer you to one of Muriel Rukeyser's famous lines: "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open."