Next weekend I’m taking StN offline to start the process of rebuilding the website. This means that I’ve come to the end of my little blogging experiment and I’ve decided that it’s time for me to taking this a little more seriously. So yes, I’ll stop talking about myself and my writing so much, and I’ll have an actual message worth sharing: something that I’m really passionate about, and something that I think is a serious problem with creative people today. (but more about all that later…)
My purpose for the last four and a half months that I’ve been operating this website was to learn and to grow. In that time I’ve done more than expected of both. I’ve learned too many lessons—both small and large—to share in one post but…
I want to share seven of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my last four months here.
Hopefully they can help someone else out as much as they have helped me.
The hardest part is starting.
For the longest time I knew that I wanted to run a website, that I wanted to have a place to share my work, but something was always holding me back. Weather it was fear, embarrassment, not knowing how, or just thinking that I wasn’t ready, if six months ago, you would have told me that I would be writing this post today, I wouldn’t have believed you. Don’t make that mistake.
If there is something that you really want to do (like, say, start a blog) then start working on it today—because if you’re like me and you want to wait until you’re ready, you’re going to be waiting a long time. (because if you’re like me, you’ll never be ready)
Be yourself, and speak with your own voice.
When I first considered starting this blog, a torrent of questions began flooding through mind and still hasn’t quite stopped. I’m the type of person that thinks a little too much for my own good (but it seems that this is a common thread amongst writers) so I’m highly susceptible to temporary insanity while wrestling with questions like:
Am I ready to take on another big project?
Do I have the time to do this?
Can I be committed to this? Or am I just going to let it die?
How do I even start a blog?
Who would want to read what I have to say, anyway?
But out of all the difficult questions, the one which hit me the hardest and had me caught up in thought for hours, turned out to be the easiest to answer: why would I start a blog about writing, when there are so many other ‘writing blogs’ out there already?
The answer is simple: Because I don’t want to read any of those other blogs…
…Which convinced me—I would never find the book (blog) that I wanted to read, unless I wrote it myself.
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Being a writer/blogger is a choice.
There are a couple of reasons why daily writing is so difficult for me, but first and foremost: I’m lazy. Especially lazy when it comes time to sit down at my desk and write.
But here’s the thing: I love writing—I love the challenge of putting words together in a way that’s fun to read—but above everything else, I absolutely love stories. So I can’t see myself making my living doing anything other than writing. Nothing else fits so naturally with me.
With that in mind you can see the difficult position I find myself in whenever the alarm goes off on my computer telling me it’s time to write.
I drag myself over to my desk, dismiss the alarm notification and sit there in silence, staring at a blank screen, reluctant to place my fingers anywhere near the keyboard, a familiar battle raging in the forefront of my mind—my slothful tendencies at war with my love for writing. Every day this battle is fought over how to spend my time; every day I’m forced to make a decision that determines it’s outcome. I can choose to indulge myself on some life’s cheap easily accessible pleasures now (I’m looking at you, YouTube), or I can choose to invest some time in my writing and enjoy the benefits later…
…At this point I’ve chosen to indulge myself enough that I’m finally starting to understand that, given the choice between the two, deciding to write is always better—even if it doesn’t always feel that way. If I do decide, for some reason, that I should take a day off and not write, that choice comes with consequences: if I choose to take a day off, the very next time I hear my alarm telling me what time it is, choosing to write will be ten times harder.
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Step outside your comfort zone, and be rewarded in unexpected ways.
I guess the point I’m trying to make with this post is to say: every challenge we face isn’t necessarily an obstacle, if you treat it like an opportunity to grow.
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Art is created to be shared, so don’t be a hoarder.
In my mind, art, by its very nature is personal. It comes from the soul. When I choose to share my art with someone what I am doing is opening myself up to them and showing a piece of the real me—unpolluted, uncensored, unfiltered, me. When they judge my writing—which they will, even I judge what I read, despite how much I may try not to—they won’t just be judging my art, they’ll be judging me.
What if they don’t like it?
What if they hate it?
What if they tell me they hate it?
What if they say I should give up?
What if they say I’m not good enough?
I’m not sure I could take it.
Okay so maybe telling people about my writing isn’t quite so melodramatic.
But to a lesser extent, not to long ago this was how I felt when I let people see my writing. I had very little confidence in myself as a writer. I knew that no one would like my stories, so why bother letting anyone read them. It didn’t feel safe to let anyone else see my art.
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Learn early, how to stay motivated.
I’m actually pretty embarrassed about it now; but in my mind, I saw myself standing in the middle of an arena, my arms spread wide as I glared at my audience. I spend hours creating this content for your entertainment! I thought. Are you not entertained?
(Which, as I look back on it now, sounds an awful lot like “Attention! give me Attention! You owe ME for reading these things that I’m putting on the internet for free!” )
Ridiculous…
Praise is like a drug: you get one small taste and you start to want more, and more, and more, until suddenly, the only reason you’re writing is for the praise of the audience. Or in other words, you now rely entirely on the applause from the audience to keep you writing. This is why balancing internal and external motivation is so important.
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And never, ever, ever… forget who you are.
Have I ever told you that I hate writing?
Probably not. Why would I? I’m a writer; and writers are supposed to have a love for writing that burns with the heat of a thousand suns… Right?
Well, the truth is I don’t love writing. In fact, I don’t even like it.
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