Tag: writing

Autobiography · Personal Development

Guts

Ruby Pipes17 Comments
"climbing." © Michael Pollak, 2013. CC BY 2.0.
“climbing.” © Michael Pollak, 2013. CC BY 2.0.

At some point, I had to finish my book. Had to put down my pen and wrap the whole thing up. Submit my final drafts and walk away. It was a project that didn’t get to go unfinished. That’s what happens when you set a release date.

My stomach is still in knots every time someone tells me their copy arrived in the mail. I’m sure there are things I could have done better. Positive they’ll find all the flaws in my work and be upset they spent their money on it. But the project is done and I have to learn to move on. Have to let good enough be good enough.

But it’s made me wonder what I could have done if I pushed just a little harder. If I was more willing to take a chance. More okay with letting go of the idea it could be perfect. To risk not making the deadline and publish something I was genuinely scared of. It’s like I ran as fast as I needed to run to win the race, but not as fast as I could have. How many times have I cut myself short just because I knew my previous limit? All the times I did what I had to do to get an A, but never wondered what would happen if I pushed further.

When things turn out to be easier than I thought they would, I don’t try to make them harder. When I succeed easily where other people struggle, I don’t try to find the point where I’d be challenged. Even with this blog, I’ve found the safe spot to sit with being vulnerable, but not completely open. I write about the more comfortable scary things and push the rest into journals.

But I don’t want to do it like that anymore. I want my projects to make me uncomfortable. To terrify me. I want to make running plans, and book ideas, and blog posts, and commitments that I honestly don’t know if I can finish. And then I want to do them anyway.

I am sick of being comfortable. Of living up to it all the time. I’m sick of knowing I can do the things I set out to do. I am sick of not having the guts to find out if my dreams are tougher than me. I am sick of only standing at the bottom of hills I know I can run up.

I’m ready to do something mesmerizing. I’m ready to dazzle. I’m ready to stop toying around with the easy, the doable, the fragments of sparkle. I am ready to be valiant.

Autobiography · Mental Health · Writing

Don’t Write

Ruby Pipes19 Comments

"writing table" © Graham Holliday, 2013. CC BY-NC 2.0.
“writing table” © Graham Holliday, 2013. CC BY-NC 2.0.
Don’t write about it. Writing about it solidifies the hurt. Gives it form, texture. Writing about it creates a framework where the darkness can continue to exist. Another form of rumination. It reworks those pathways in your brain, rivers cutting deeper and deeper into the earth every time you put a word down.

Each word is another snowflake leading up to the avalanche. Creating something which used to not be there. Destroying that which used to be safe.

Don’t write about it. Your words are sharp, broken glass under delicate feet. Thoughts like drops of water, each one insignificant, but they come on like a flash flood. You’re drowning.

Sometimes writing can serve as a way to sort. Pulling belongings out of the bottom of your backpack, putting them in the correct drawer. But today writing is doing nothing but fanning your anxious flames. Pulling the cord on a chainsaw until it screams to life and you’re left wailing on the floor.

Don’t write about it. Take a breath and divert your attention. Watch TV, take a walk, make huge gashes of color with markers across a blank piece of paper. Crawl back into bed and hide under the covers. Look at yourself in the mirror and say, “This is really fucking hard.” But don’t say why.

Autobiography · Mental Health · Personal Development

Growing Pains

Ruby Pipes12 Comments

“Growing up!” © Craig Sunter, 2015. CC BY-ND 2.0.
I’ve been pushing out blog posts like splinters. Only when necessary. Other than that, I’ve just been editing and pretending I’m not a writer at all.

My book release opened up a big can of imposter syndrome on me. Now I feel like everything I write is bullshit. Like the whole thing is bullshit and I’m fooling everyone into thinking I’m a writer. It feels slimy, deceitful. It feels like the whole book is a trick. Maybe that’s just because I’m scared of it. Scared of it failing. Scared of it not doing anything at all.

But I did it anyway. I’m terrified of it and I did it anyway. That counts for something. That counts for a hell of a lot, actually. So there’s that. I can look myself in the mirror and say that even though I was afraid, I did it. And I don’t do that much. Even though I wanted to take it all back, I didn’t. And I don’t do that much, either, but now I do.

This is a new skill in my arsenal. I do things that make me want to dig my heels in and shake my head. To be that person feels like summiting a mountain. Because that’s where all the good stuff is, isn’t it? All the little juicy bits in life hide behind the big dogs, the darkened closet doors, the high heights. So maybe it’s okay to be scared. Maybe it’s okay to be a little catatonic when I think about all the things going on in my life. Maybe that’s a good sign. Maybe that’s where the goodness lies.

If that’s true, then everything is going just fine. And that’s a thought I hadn’t considered yet. That maybe there is something beautiful in hiding under the blankets. Maybe it’s not always a sign that we’re broken. That we’re hurting. But that we’re pushing. Growing pains.

I remember them from when I was a kid. Legs that felt like they were ripping themselves apart. And there was nothing to do about it. I just had to wait it out. Had to get excited that it meant I would be bigger one day. And that’s what this is, too. We can get excited that we’re growing, that we’re changing. We can hurt. We can feel it. But that doesn’t mean that anything bad is happening. That doesn’t mean that we are regressing. All it means is that it hurts. But it won’t forever. I promise. Shhh.