Saturday, June 30, 2012

The habit of stealing

(Image sourced from www.wordsoverpixels.com)

I've been encouraged to steal today.

Following Jeff Goins' 15 Habits of Great Writers series is really challenging me and pushing me out of my comfort zone (especially by having to do things like, you know, actually start writing..., but this 'habit' I actually find easy.  Stealing, borrowing, being inspired by, whatever you want to call it, I find inspiration in the world around me every day - I'm just not consistent at actually translating that into anything on a regular basis, so I end up with stories, ideas, blog posts and the like bouncing around in my head, never seeing the light of day.  So the challenge for me is to actually do something with my inspiration, and when I read Jeff's post on 'stealing', the image above was the first thing that came to mine.

I don't remember when I first came across this quote, but I saw this version of it on Facebook a few weeks ago, and I've been thinking about it every day since.  Ever since I bought my house (nearly 3 years ago), I've been wanting to put a big canvas on the wall of the front entrance, the first thing you see when you walk in the door.  When I saw this quote again, I knew it was exactly what I need to put there.  I love the idea of people opening the door and being greeted by this question, but even more so, it's been making me think about my own answers.

You know, I feel like I don't really know what I want to do with my own one wild and precious life.  I'm nearly 36 years old, and I'm still trying to work out what it is I want to do when I grow up.  I don't think this is a bad thing, not being able to see the path of my life before me, and my experience of living to date has shown me that really, nothing goes to plan and you'll cope with the rollercoaster of life better if you learn to just hang on for the ride. 

When people talk about their goals, their dreams, what it is they're working towards, I sit in quiet contemplation of the fact that I don't really have any of those, not in a defined, this-is-what-I-want-and-this-is-how-I'm-going-to-get-there manner.  I have concepts and abstract notions of what I want to do, the sort of person I want to be, but as for tangible, definable goals?  Not really on my radar at the moment.  I think the last few years have been a time of trying just to deal with the every day and all that it brings, of playing catch-up and at times of simply hanging on for dear life, I haven't had the capacity to dream, to dare to think 'what if.....?', to allow myself the luxury of identifying what it is that I desperately want to do, to be.

To be brutally honest, I'm scared of doing that.  Because if I do, I might fail, yet again.  And we all know that it's easier and less painful to not try in the first place than to crash and burn, don't we?

I know I focus more on my failures and lack of achievements than the things I have accomplished, which is the complete opposite of what I encourage people in my life to do, both personally and professionally.  I know I need to shift that perspective, to see what I haven't been able to to as steps along the way to what I have done.

I dropped out of uni after I finished high school, but I went back 11 years later and got my degree.

I failed as a wife, but I now know the true purpose of marriage and try to encourage the married couples around me in their discovery of the same, and am content in my own singleness.

I feel like I fail as a mum every single day, but I keep trying to learn from my mistakes and to be the best mum I can be.

I have abandoned every single art/craft I've learnt at some point along the way, because I'd give up if I couldn't make it perfect, I wasn't willing to make it ugly, when my frustrations became overwhelming and I couldn't make it turn out exactly how I'd envisioned it.  Now my motto is 'done is better than perfect', and wouldn't you know, I'm creating again.

Whilst I didn't exactly fail as a clinical nurse, I didn't get to where I wanted to be, but my path took a fork in the road, and now I have a job that I love, and strive to do better in every day (despite how often I feel like I'm not good enough!!)

I have avoided writing again for so long it, but now I'm writing everyday and finding my voice.  The writing is easy, it's what I do with it that still strikes fear deep within.  I know it is not God's intention for my words to remain hidden, just between me and Him, but the thought of putting myself  'out there' brings the ultimate fear of rejection.  I am learning that the world needs our voices, because we all have a story to tell.  I am continuing to learn that a life lived in fear is a life half lived, and I refuse to live in the shadow of fear anymore.

So now what do I plan to do with my one wild and precious life?  I plan to live wildly free, to live the life that God intended, live it to the full.  To stop living in fear, because a life lived in fear is a life half lived, and I refuse to live in its' shadow anymore.

What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Confessions




I have a confession to make.

For all I’ve talked about in my life – in real life with friends, here on the blog, in my head with myself – about being real and honest and authentic, being intentional - I’ve been holding a part of me back because I’ve been too fearful to expose it to the world.  Nothing earth-shatteringly terrible, nothing scandalous and juicy, just elements of my life that I’ve chosen to keep from public view – and to be honest, from myself - because, well, to bring them out into the light might open up a whole can of worms that I simply don’t want to deal with.  And because I can’t predict how people might react (more on that later...).

Over the last few days, I’ve started writing again.  I used to write all the time when I was a kid, right through high school, and eventually.......I just stopped.  Looking back now, I would say I didn’t really start writing again until I started a blog in 2004, and then when I started uni in 2005, writing became a necessary part of daily life, albeit for taking notes, writing essays and whatever else was required for the subject matter.  It wasn’t a practice that nourished the soul, but it did get me back into practice again.
Between writing the blog (as infrequent as that was) and writing for uni, I began to exercise and hone forgotten skills, and I found that it really was like riding a bike, I hadn’t forgotten how to do it.  When I came to know Christ as my saviour in 2006, I started keeping a written journal, and I began to feel the need to write again. Fast forward to now, 2012, and my writing practice has been sporadic at best.  Blogging was sporadic at best, and effectively went by the wayside as I struggled with how much of myself I wanted to put ‘out there’ in the big wide world, and as much as I felt the need to write, I have essentially been too lazy to maintain the discipline of journaling regularly.  And I’ve also been fearful of what I might discover about myself when I start looking.

For the last few months, I have been feeling the pull to write so strongly, it has become like a constant hum in my head, through my whole being.  I know it is God calling me to be the person He has created, to be a writer, and I have been resisting Him.  Pretty much ignoring Him, actually, and I know it’s because of fear.  I have felt physically resistant to the thought of sitting down at a keyboard, or putting pen to paper, and even though I’ve tried a few times, I haven’t been able to break through this very real barrier I’ve felt. 
Since the beginning of the year, I have been reading just about everything I can about writing – how to start, what to write, how to develop good practices, and so on.  I’ve found some fantastic blogs and sites that are a wealth of information and encouragement.  And yet I still haven’t been able to just start.  I’ve blogged about creating, about being intentional, about living authentically, but I still couldn’t just start writing.   Blogging didn’t feel like ‘real’ writing, and writing became this huge concept that I felt incapable of grasping and acting on.  It felt like to start writing, I needed to have it all planned out – what I was going to say, how I was going to say it, what platform I was going to use (which in my warped perception meant being ready to write a book....), so of course it was all too overwhelming, and it was easier to not do anything.

Except it wasn’t.

This whole time, for months, I have felt a growing gnawing in the pit of my soul, a constant battle of wills within, between the truest part of me that knows I need to write, and the controlling part of me that has been too scared to do so.

Until now.

A few days ago, I came across Jeff Goins’ blog via chatting at the sky (one of my favourite blogs/writers), and I discovered his e-book and the challenge he recently hosted about writing.  For whatever reason, I knew it was now or never, and that the time had come to stop resisting and face that which was holding me captive with fear.  So I did.  I started writing again.  And I don’t remember the last time I felt such freedom.
It has only been a few days, but I feel like I’ve started a new life, a new way of living, and I know it’s not because I’ve been sitting and typing words, but because I’ve embraced God’s calling and am following the path He has been trying to set me on, I’ve just been too scared to follow.
As I posted a few days ago, I am a writer.  It’s not just what I do, it’s who I am.  It’s written in my DNA and in my soul, I’ve known for a very long time that I need to write as much as I need to breathe, and that because I haven’t been writing, I haven’t been really living.  

Fear is a killer, and it will destroy us if we let it, in so many, many ways.  I have let fear keep me from living authentically for too long, but no more.  That’s not to say that I won’t have to face it and deal with it every day, but I am assured by the knowledge that there is no fear in love, that perfect love drives out fear, and that I am becoming who I am because He loves me.  

I wrote earlier about not revealing this part of myself to ‘the world’ because I couldn’t predict how people might react, and I’ve realised that’s been one of the biggest things holding me back.  People might laugh at me when I say I’m a writer, not that I just write, but that I am a writer.  They might think that it’s nice that I have a hobby, or dismiss it because I’m not published, or laugh at me because really, what makes me so special?  It has taken me this long to allow myself to accept who I am (and I’m still working on that), then to declare it, and it really is a declaration, as much as I could say ‘I’m a mum’ after my son was born.  And as much as I don’t like to admit it, I do care what people think about me, I do value people’s opinions and am hurt by ridicule.  I do want people to like me and accept me (gee, I’m full of confessions today!!), so to make a statement like this that may invite criticism and scorn has been a challenge, but here I am.

I am a writer.

Hear me roar.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Declaration

I am a writer.

There is so much to say, but somewhat ironically, for now I don't have the words. 

They will come.  But for today, I am declaring who I am, as true as I know it to be in the deepest part of my very being.

I.  Am.  A.  Writer.