This is the first time I’ve sat down to write in months.
I have thought about it constantly. Sometimes about stories I’d like to write. Sometimes about subjects I’d like to address in a blog. But I always stop short of actually acting.
Writing is hard for me. Always has been. Even though I have made a living doing so for many years.
One reason: I don’t want to waste time spewing forth self-indulgent crap that even I don’t want to read. Another: Expressing thoughts that aren’t original. Thoughts that others have already articulated in print or online. Even if I think I have a new wrinkle or spin, it doesn’t matter. Essentially, it’s still just an echo.
I struggled with this for years as a daily newspaper columnist. I would push news and events through my own personal prism and tell myself I’m presenting a new perspective. And sometimes I would be ahead of conventional wisdom.
But so what?
If an idea occurred to me, chances are it would have occurred to others.
A new concept gets subtly ghostwritten into the lexicon of the mass media as if it had always been there. Authorship is irrelevant.
When you’re writing on someone else’s dime, you get used to your work product being treated as a commodity. Yes, at times you can take pride in an inspired piece that resonates with others. Or a story you break. But you soon learn that the shelf life of your work product is short. And the piper who pays you is more concerned about what you do next.
When you’re writing for yourself, however – writing to express your thoughts and feelings regardless of whether your work ever gets published — the process gets more complicated.
At least for me.
I’m talking about writing that reveals your soul. The recounting of stories — factual or fictional — that draw on your personal experience and expose your inner most hopes and fears.
This kind of writing scares me.
I’m afraid to be honest with myself. I’m afraid the insights I seek to share will provokes only yawns or the rolling of eyes. What if readers conclude they’ve heard it all before? What if, despite my pretensions to the contrary, I’m just another hack?
I am afraid I won’t like the answers to such questions. That’s why it’s so easy for me to find excuses not to write.
But maybe I can change. Get off my butt and be vulnerable enough to try.
Consider this the start.
