Dreams of Writing

Being who you already are no matter the circumstances of your life is what it means to release the art you were made to live.

-Emily Freeman

The writer's group I'm blessed to be a part of asked us to write this week on our secret dreams as writers and what is holding us back from them.  Initially, I wanted to say I quit my job and am seeking out the most meaningful (read: unpaid) writing work I can find.  I've made the leap -- I just don't have any assignments.  I just can't find an audience.  

I wanted to say I'm going for the dream, I'm just failing.

But I spent a few quiet moments to ponder what my dreams truly are.  When I am honest with myself it was never my dream to write for state lawmakers (though that felt like a dream job).  And it isn't my dream now to secure great writing gigs.  It's deeper than that.

The dream is to move people with words.  To inspire them to make their world better.  To reach them down wherever they are and let them know they can go up as high as they would like.  To tell those girls and boys who don't know it yet they are good enough.  They are capable.  To encourage kindness and diligence and dedication to more than just what we see in front of us today.

The moments when that has been possible have been the moments when life felt right.

And here I am with two and a half hours until midnight with the worldwide platform on my computer screen and a group of wonderful women cheering me on and I am running over the reasons in my head why I should sit this one out.

I'm tired.

I don't have enough time to get it right.

I don't want to be late again.

No one will read it anyway.

If they do, they'll think I'm stupid.

I need to get some other things done.

This isn't mandatory.

And the pile of excuses is always there for me.  I can offer them up.  Hide behind them.  Spend my time ticking them off, one by one.  But that is what is actually holding me back, isn't it?  Excuses.

Okay, it is A LOT more than that.  But excuses is a big one.  I'd be further ahead if I didn't cling to them.

The cursor flashes as I decide whether or not to elaborate.

But I'm tired and it's late and I need to get some other things done and this isn't mandatory.

We'll see what tomorrow holds.

Having lupus, Part 6: Exhaustion

It's just a constant battle: Me against my body. My passions and my dreams and what I want to do with my life, against what I'm physically able to do.
-Austin Carlile

Note: This was a free-write I did back in the winter, obviously born of frustration. (I hope you laugh at that word later.)  Sometimes the sound of clacking keys is therapeutic, no matter the result.  I thought it would be appropriate for this series of posts to share now these uncensored feelings I had "in the moment."

It is one of those days.  I am exhausted.  I am white-knuckling the day with the goal of remaining upright until it is close to an acceptable bed time.

This makes no sense to me.  I slept a full eight hours last night.  A full eight hours.  Shouldn't my energy level coincide with my sleeping pattern?  I have been tired, exhausted before.  I always thought it was sleep.  I have felt better on four hours than I feel today.

I guess this is lupus?  Whatever it is, it is so frustratingly frustrating.  Yes, that's how frustrating it is.  Except more.  I could come up with much better words than that, but I am exhausted.  And frustratingly frustrating is what I can muster.  Frustrating isn't strong enough and I want to say frustratingly some other word that I just can't pull from my fog-filled brain.  So frustratingly frustrating it is.  If I fight any harder for another word my computer may end up in more than one piece on the other side of the room.  Or house.  Or yard.  It's hard to know for sure.

I feel confined by invisible chains.  I feel compelled to write but I am consumed by a magnetic pull toward a vegetative state.  And fighting it seems futile.

So this is what I can write.  I tried.  All.  Day.  Long.  To string together coherent thoughts on beauty and makeup and DermaBlend Camo Confessions and Dove Real Beauty sketches.  But there was not enough energy when every word was a fight.  To insert links and look up data and embed videos is too much work when balancing my head on top of my shoulders feels like a chore.  With the sun gone down, I must surrender those thoughts to another day.

Nothing to show for this one.

If I am to write today then this is all I can seem to explain.  And even this not very well.

To feel this way for a day is not so bad.  But when this exhaustion stretches out and deepens, when the body is completely drained, it begins to drain the spirit too.  This is where I learn patience.  As I wait for energy to return.  I wait and I wait and that is all I can do.

It has been with me too long this time, exhaustion.  I'm ready for a break.  Can I sit it down for a while, I ask.  What if I agree to come back and pick it up later?  Just a break if full-fledged relief isn't possible.  What good is this anyway?  Really?  Am I not better when I am better?

And still I just wait.

Relief will come.  It always does.  I'm hoping for tomorrow.  And I hope that tomorrow I'm not hoping for the next day.

Note: Infuriating.  That was the word.

---

This post is part of a series on how lupus has affected me.

Click on the links below to read more:

Part 1: Introduction, The horrific mystery disease

Part 2: The bad times

Part 3: How lupus made me a better wife

Part 4: A practice of patience

Part 5: More on the pit

Part 7: Saying no

My diagnosis

My herbalist and the treatment option I am choosing right now

My recent lifestyle changes

To learn more about lupus, you may visit the Lupus Foundation of America.

An open letter to my critics

Dear Critic,

All of my life you have kept me in chains.  Even before I knew what to call you, you kept me silent.  On the sidelines.

I listened to you.  I believed you.

I labeled you truth and anything else a lie.  I don't understand why.  But I did.  And still sometimes do.

You said I was not good enough.  Never would be.  You said there was no use in trying.  That failure was guaranteed.  I agreed.

You said I was stupid.  I was awkward and boring.  I was ugly and fat and unfixable.  Sub-par.

You said my ideas were dumb.  My dreams were invalid.  My words were best unwritten.

I thought you were right.  And so I didn't write them.  When I did pick up the pen, it was with a shaky, unsure hand.

You have judged me harshly without even knowing me.  You claim to understand, but you have no idea.  You don't care about me, truly, even when you say you do.  You're much more insecure than I am and you won't even admit it.  You think the only way to build yourself up is to tear me down.  And that's sad.  I'm not going to play along.

I have tried to make you happy.  Sacrificing my own joy in trying.  With no reward.  (Why am I surprised?)  It must be impossible to please you.

I am learning that you cannot be trusted.  And I am timid and I am still scared of you, but I do not value your opinion of me like I used to.

I have let you hold me back, but now I am breaking free.  You will not defeat me.  If I fail, it will not be because of you or your accusations or your predictions.  And when I am wrong, that still does not mean that you are right.

Even if I sometimes stumble, even if my words fall flat, even if a dream is unrealized, you still are mistaken about me.

Despite what you say, there is not fault in boldness, in authenticity, in courage, in kindness -- even hard kindness, in persistence and perseverance and patience.

Others know better than you about me.  You do not, but others accept me for who I am.  I am loved.  And I am turning my ear to the voice of love.  That is truth.  I am clinging now to love and truth and justice and security and validity.

And as we part, I hope you seek a better way.

Best,
Amy

I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
-Abraham Lincoln

Criticism reframe

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost what it feels about dogs.
-John Osborne

I may be the last person in America to know about Divergent.  I mean, I've seen random posts from friends about the book series and Veronica Roth.  But I didn't really know what they were about and didn't take the time to investigate.  I've been a bit pre-occupied these last few months.

I was watching live television Tuesday night and couldn't fast-forward through a movie preview about a girl trying to break free from a society of factions.  I was intrigued.  The movie: Divergent.  The pieces came together.  That's what people have been talking about.

I decided to check out the book series on Amazon.  I wasn't sure if I would like it or not.  Though not a hard and fast rule, I usually don't L-O-V-E love other-worldly-ish science-fiction-y books (which this looked to be).

I decided to scroll through some reader reviews and came across this one:

...The real reason I give this book one star is because the book, as a whole, was awful. I'm sorry, but this is one of the most shoddily written books I've ever read in my entire life. And I say this as someone who absolutely adored the first two books in this series. I say this as someone who read Fifty Shades of Grey ... and Allegiant has officially taken that book's place as the worst book I've ever read. And I debated somewhat on that, but I decided that Allegiant wins because, while Fifty Shades was an affront to literature indeed, I don't actually wish I could go back in time and unread it. I wish to the heavens that I had never read Allegiant. ...

I don't know much about these books, their writer or this reader.  But words like that paralyze me.

They make me think: If a best-selling, publisher-contracted author whose words have been catapulted to the big screen gets reviews like that, then what would people say about the words I write if they read them?

We've been talking about obstacles in the (in)courage writers' group I'm blessed to be a part of and one of my biggest is fear of criticism.  Before I click publish, I begin to imagine how my words might be criticized.  I have more than two dozen un-published drafts in my blog queue.  Many of them stalled out of fear at how they might be received.  For style or for content.

This fear is why I stay silent more than I speak up.  Imagine my struggle when I learned that silence is also criticized!  What can a girl do to banish the critics?!?!

Well, while I do wish we lived in a world where people are nicer to one another.  And I do think we have become an overly-critical people.  (Wait... I'm being critical... This is so hard.)  The truth is, there will always be critics.  Criticism is inevitable.  Even Jesus -- especially Jesus -- was criticized.

And sometimes criticism can be a good thing.  What if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had not been critical?

Maybe the best way is not to avoid criticism, but to work through it.  To work despite it.  To be grounded in my value and my worth (as Alia Boston Hagenbach reminded our writers' group) and my own personal truth and to share those with the world in love.

Maybe the best way is not to avoid criticizing, but to do so with respect and thoughtfulness.  To work to build up and improve, not tear down and destroy.

To remember that the best way to move forward together is to keep a dialogue open to every voice, every side, every ideology.

And to remember when words boomerang back harshly at me that even best-selling, publisher-contracted authors whose words are played out on-screen have their critics.

Just like a harsh judgment doesn't make her any less than, it doesn't make me less than either.

Five Minute Friday: Write (Take 2)

The thing about writing is that at some point somebody's going to want to read it.
-Lisa Jo Baker

I can't remember a time without this passion, this drive.  A child, too innocent and ignorant to do anything but surrender to it.  An adult, too unsure to even acknowledge it.

So I put away childhood dreams and entered adulthood with this passion awkwardly beside me.  It straining around and around, me craning my neck further and further away.  I ignored it, but we both knew I knew it was there. 

It kept pecking on my shoulder and I kept pretending like I didn't feel a thing.

I was afraid to write.  Because who will read my words?  Who would see my heart laid bare?  I don't know.  Once on paper they could get to anyone.  Far too dangerous a risk for me.

And that was life.

Until I began to write for a living.  And hiding behind others' names and agency titles, I was free to let words flow anonymously.  Mine, but not really and I got to practice my craft.  And the passion grew and burned and became an overpowering flame.

And still these days, my page stays mostly blank.

[That's five minutes, but I'm going to continue...]

Fingers hovered above a keyboard, trembling.  Still afraid to write.  Because who will read my words? 

A different question than before.  No longer how can I keep them hidden, but now how can I see them exposed?  Flung into the world, will they even be relevant, significant at all?  I don't know.  And that makes exhausting work harder and leaves it undone.

But I am reminded that I am not the one in charge.  That there is One who is author, editor, publisher, reader.  That these words inside should be let out and entrusted to Him.  That the words I saw a girl today, legs stretched out, and a man hunched over her feet, shining her boots will rattle around until I release them.  And I only need to let them go, not worry who will receive them.

Because I know He read my words when they were written just on my heart.  And world aside, He reads what I write today.  And writing for an audience of One is more than enough for me.

---

Read my first take on the Write prompt here.

Lisa Jo Baker invites bloggers to freewrite for five minutes each week on specific prompts. And then to share with the world what's on the page when the buzzer sounds. Learn more about this anxiety-inducing freewrite flashmob here.