I can’t go in thinking it’ll be my next
great novel. And by next I mean first. The stories in my mind are haphazard,
fleeting, then gone. It reminds me of the creative spark certain professions
require where the best time to create something perfect is when you haven’t
planned it at all. I picture everyone sitting and waiting for me to say
something great, quotable, memorable. I find my fingers frozen over the
keyboard with this internal, self-inflicted pressure to CREATE. Do it. Now. If
you don’t start writing at this very moment, it will be gone.
But then you do it, and it is never as
impressive as you wanted it to be. So...at this point do you save it as a draft
and start over, or delete all of it entirely and wait for the next moment of
inspiration? And who’s to say it is “that” anyway? “That” being inspiring,
magical, provoking, everything you yourself expect a book to be when you open
it to invest your precious time in its contents. Oh the horror of leaving an
unimpressive mark!
The familiar question of my childhood was
“what if they hate it?” What? Anything. Anything I produce as an expression of
myself. It can so easily be rejected. “No, they’ll love it,” I hear the kinder
part of myself say. Who are you people kidding? That only works in really sappy
movies or to really pretty people. I prefer the Sundance award-winner worthy
movies that make everyone want to crawl under a rock and die. Too often you
hear the words you fear most, “This is good, but not quite ‘it’”; “I like it. I
mean, it’s not too bad.” And although I hate producing bad work, I think I
would still rather the Great Oz come down on my performance with fiery disdain
than hear a lukewarm response. Clearly, hating something is much better than
not caring about something, because one of these invokes some sort of feeling,
while the other conjures zero concern or care at all. So at least hate my work,
get mad over it, think about it tomorrow, let it make you smile and relate, or be
inspired. I just want someone to care, to feel something as a result of, to
remember the next day.
I don’t just write for me. I don’t always
know why I write, except for some innate need, literal NEED, inside of me to
create. That need is different for everyone, but mine is focused on the art
written work. I think everyone really wants to save the world in one way or
another. Many people want to save the world
through beauty, and some of them are doing a fantastic job. The best writers,
singers, song-writers, artists I know are the ones who can touch the part of my
soul that longs for beauty. There is nothing more powerful than passion at work.
And nothing more beautiful than witnessing that passion.
I write to tell stories, to find
commiseration with other flailing humans, to be honest, to find peace, to
identify with my heroes of the same art, to glorify my Lord, to challenge my
mind and its amazing ability to convince me I am incapable, and to summon the
deepest thoughts of my heart to the surface.
I think this is maybe meta-writing...but
as I grapple with the significance of my own abilities and uncover this hole
where I tend to bury my talent, I have to write about writing to confirm that I
can even do it.
