Creative writing - From think to ink - Lindstrom Simeon 2015

Having the guts to say something

So, we’ve had a brief look at our Big Why and started putting out feelers to find those delicious roots of desire that inform all our creative impulses. Now, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to the Closet Writer (although I believe you’re already quite well acquainted with this character…)

The Closet Writer works some job or other, which he likes some amount but not overly so, and he has colleagues who would be shocked to learn that he writes in his spare time. The Closet Writer (let’s call him Ned, shall we? In my story, I’m going to give him dark eyes and suspiciously smooth hands and a mole on his cheek with three hairs in it …this is my story after all and that’s the way I’m going to make it.)

Ned has scores of notebooks at home, all filled with the beginnings of novels, with grand plans and outlines of stories, with character sketches and bold ideas. He has poems he wrote in university that he was proud of but now hides in back pages of journals, letting them slowly go yellow. He occasionally shares these things with his mother and sometimes his girlfriend, and they like it, but then nothing happens and he goes back to scribbling behind closed doors, with vague notions of sharing his work “someday”.

Deep down, Ned has one belief that keeps his scribblings hidden and almost shameful: that he doesn’t have the right to speak. That artists are some sort of special species who are bright and brilliant and that he’s not really one of them. So he calls himself an “aspiring writer” and blushes and changes the topic when people ask him about it at parties. He likes to think of himself as massively talented, but misunderstood. He doesn’t take criticism well and one day, when he sees a less talented and completely ordinary friend succeed at writing something and publishing it, he gets bitter and writes off his success, “Well it’s easy to get trash like that published, obviously. It’s harder to find a market for stuff that’s written properly, it’s the sorry state of publishing today.”

Any of this sounding familiar? Unlike other minority groups and closet-dwellers, however, life does not get better for Ned. He goes to the grave, as Thoreau said, “with his song still in him.” Ned had the tiny flickers of desire and creativity and yearning in him, lacked the guts to put it out there, and that’s that.

Millions of epic sagas, brilliant songs, beautiful poems and movies that might have been blockbusters have died along with these people who didn’t believe they had the right to ask the world to pay attention. Being creative takes a certain amount of audacity, and the sorry truth is that most of us are just too afraid to speak up and say our bit.

We’re taught from childhood that all our efforts will be judged and ranked along with the efforts of our peers. We’re raised in school and work environments that discourage boasting and unique expression. We value conformity and like only those ideas that are financially profitable. We penalize difference and diversity in others, all the while stifling it in ourselves and trying to win approval rather than understanding our unique selves and having the guts to broadcast them.

So Ned says, “Oh nothing, don’t worry, I have nothing to say” and the world doesn’t argue with him, and he goes on scratching notes privately, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is a tragedy that rivals Shakespeare’s.

Today, look at your desires and your Big Why. Try to see if you carry any shame or embarrassment about it. I’m not just talking about being sheepish about exploring your gift for writing absolutely filthy erotica or a hush-hush hobby where you write terribly nerdy fan fiction.

Ask yourself honestly if you censor your message in the belief that you don’t deserve to have one. I can tell you one thing right now: famous authors, well-known speakers and all the rest — they weren’t any more or less special than you. They didn’t come into this world with their fame already in tact. They had something to say, and they took the leap of faith and said it. In fact, some authors were only really appreciated after they died. But they understood that keeping quiet when they had something to share was far worse than enduring the fear of just saying it.

·  Are you secretly sabotaging yourself because you’re “not a real writer”?

·  Do you call yourself an “aspiring writer” or call your craft a hobby or a dream or speak about it in ways that undermine your seriousness? “Author” and “authority” share the same root — and for good reason. Do you have a sense of authority, literally?

·  Are you generally unconfident in life? Do you hold your tongue or act like a martyr in your relationships? Do you sell yourself short?

·  Do you care too much what other people think about you?