twenty(or)something

A close friend sent me the link to an article, titled “Give Me Twitter or Give Me Death.” While my love for Twitter doesn’t run so deep (give it time), it made me question what attracts me to it, to blogging, to writing.

The answer is in the details.

According to the article, “Twitter is a communications technology, a form of mass instant messaging, that specializes in recording the details of life in the moment.”

And, for me, therein lies the appeal: recording the details of life in the moment.

It’s why I read, it’s why I write. I love the everyday moments of life and those ties that bind us together: making dinner, going to work, playing a game, questioning life…There is beauty in the simple moments that is captured by words, a life story woven through them.

Maybe this is why I’ve always been intrigued by history — not so much by the events that occurred, but, rather, by the people that experienced them. Humanity has no time barrier; it spans generations, and though our technology may have changed, though our societies may differ, we can still relate to generations before us because we all still love, laugh, face heartbreak and rejection, feel joy, feel suffering, feel lonely.

Maybe this new technology is just another way to bridge that gap, let everyone have a brief glimpse into someone else’s life to help us realize how similar we really are, to see them for the people they were, not just as names, but as fellow human beings.

We’re not so different. No matter what age, no matter what era. Maybe this technology just emphasizes that more, brings history a little closer to home.

Because I don’t think I’ll ever quite be able to articulate these thoughts as well as I did last May, below is the blog post I wrote after a trip to Gettysburg:

I used to hate history as a kid and love it now, and I know the exact reason for it: Textbooks are filled with only the facts — dates and names and places are meaningless unless there is a story there. And there is always a story. Maybe that’s the writer in me, but I believe that history is more than a recording — it’s a living picture, a breathing past. A journal is the same thing; it’s the story of a life – raw, uncut, and unedited.

When I went to Gettysburg with my best friend a few weeks ago, we toured the museum in the Visitor’s Center. I will freely admit that I quickly bypassed the plaques with all of the figures and dates and zeroed in on the showcases that held real, tangible objects. It’s breathtakingly bittersweet to realize that what is now on display was once in someone’s hands: Someone wrote in that diary, someone read from that prayerbook. Behind protective glass is furniture punctured by bullet holes and mirrors with smudges and cracks; showcased is an old wooden medical kit with some of the medicine still in glass jars and a full-size diorama of what an officer’s living quarters would be in comparison to a foot soldier’s.

The heartbreaking reality is that these were people who lived and breathed and shared smiles and tears — someone looked in that mirror, before it was cracked, when it hung on a wall; someone sat in a camp just like the one depicted in this glass case, possibly poking at their dying fire, struggling to keep warm beneath their thin tent, millions of miles away from home and missing their parents or siblings or pets. They may have laughed as they played cards or chess with a fellow soldier, as the little pocket games that were on display would suggest; maybe they wrote how they really felt to their families, or maybe they kept up that brave front, as the letters read. I wondered if these grown men cried, reverted to the mere boys they really were, as they lay on their cots in the dark and thought about the people they loved and left and lost; I wondered if they feared what they would face the next morning — and not just the battle, but the weather, the disease, the journey.

We’re left to always wonder. We read their journals to get glimpses into their lives, to see how people lived and maybe even boast about how far we’ve come, but maybe what we’re really looking for is that connection, to see that despite time and location and circumstance, we all really fear, hope, and long for the same things. So much is captured and kept in a museum, but feelings of fear and insecurity and faith can’t be preserved behind a glass wall. Despite the records and artifacts, a million little moments are lost forever.

We all have experiences and emotions that we want to remember. We all have a story to tell.

What story do you want to tell?

Yeah you questioned this life
Sure you wondered about love
But you swear there’s always hope…
Everything starts to fall into place.
Collective Soul, “Good Morning After All”

Sometimes I wonder if I’m not a little bit afraid of finding success and happiness. Sometimes I wonder if I don’t subconsciously sabotage myself, hold back as a kind of defense mechanism to prevent failure, to prevent getting hurt.

I’m not exactly proud to admit this, but I wonder if there’s any truth to it. There are moments where I feel those small flickers of familiar feelings rising up again — tiny nuggets of doubt, questioning myself, wondering if something will end before it even starts, worried that these good things are too good to be true.

Maybe this is why I’m so resistant to change. Because there’s a comfort knowing that you can’t fail, that you can’t get hurt. If you don’t let yourself be vulnerable, you can’t lose anything.

But what’s worse, you can’t gain anything, either.

I’m sitting here typing this — thinking about my new job, new connections, new opportunities — and I’m wondering why I’m questioning myself, wondering why this is even an issue. Where are all these thoughts stemming from? Who is this person with all these sudden insecurities and doubts?

Am I really still that same person who months ago feared love, feared success, feared change? Am I still that girl who carried the weight of her world? Who shied away from taking risks, taking chances?

No.

No way.

I’m not that same girl. And, truthfully, I don’t think that ever was me, not really. For months, I thought that my situation and these feelings were what defined me. But I’ve since realized that I’ve always been so much more.

I’m the girl who realized her worth and faced decisions she wasn’t entirely prepared for, finding her strength, confronting her past, then learning to let it go.

I’m the girl who hopped a plane to chase a dream almost on a whim; who found friendship by the fireside in a tiny village and serenity and strength alone in a Paris airport.

I’m the girl who found passion, found courage, found herself.

And I’ve turned into a woman who can push through these fears that threaten to rise, discovering that taking a chance means being vulnerable, that pursuing opportunity means confronting challenges.

And living life means embracing it all.

I wrote a draft of this blog post twice before I sent it to a friend and fellow writer for some advice. It’s a dilemma I’ve rarely faced in the year since I’ve first started blogging. Usually, it would take an hour to crank out a post, edit it for clarity, and hit publish. I would feel confident, rarely second-guessing myself or my thoughts.

But now that has changed, and it’s taking every effort to combat it.

Writing can be such a personal outlet, no matter which form it takes. As a blogger, you’re initiating conversation and forming connections by allowing readers into your personal life. As a fiction writer, you’re imagining a new world, with characters you can relate to because they are often based on individual experiences.

Words are powerful, full of thought and meaning, and it’s true that the meaning you give those words is often a reflection of yourself. Perhaps that’s why writing can be as detrimental as it is rewarding. Being a writer means being vulnerable, subject to criticism and rejection. Suddenly, you feel as if you’re a prisoner to a craft you once loved: a blinking cursor or a blank page turns into a self-made cage.

Only, you have the key, right there in your hand.

With your fingers to the keyboard and a pen in your hand, you can unleash creativity and allow inspiration to grow in the place of doubt.

An insightful commenter on the previous post mentioned the works of David Leisner, a classical guitarist and composer who created the Six Golden Rules for Conquering Performance Anxiety. While these rules pertain to music, specifically, they can be altered to fit any aspect where you begin to feel the hints of self-doubt.

Below are just a few of the steps as related to writing:

1) You have practiced to the best of your ability. Trust your automatic pilot to do the rest of the work for you.
There comes a point where you begin to over-think your own writing, where that red editing pen fills in the margins of your manuscript and your screen is peppered with track changes notifications. You become so worried about crafting that perfect paragraph or sentence and choosing that just-right word that you lose your stride and second-guess your choices.

Trust yourself. Trust your ability. Put away the pen, turn off the editor in you, and let the words come naturally, as they’re meant to.

2) Do not judge what happened or what will happen.
You’re not the writer you were yesterday. And tomorrow, you may not be the writer you are today. That’s because not only are you constantly revising and editing your work, but you’re also always learning, growing, and experimenting with your craft. Don’t worry about what others are doing or what they’re writing about. Listen to yourself; write what moves you in that moment.

3) Do not second-guess any audience member’s reaction…as your perception will probably be inaccurate. Please yourself only.
Why do you write? When you take a step back and consider it, why do you really write? Is it for the paycheck? To see your name on the bestsellers list, your book on the shelves? Or does your motivation run deeper. Do you write for others, to gauge their reaction and be showered in praise?

Or do you write for yourself? Because you have stories to share and you feel like you could burst any minute with experiences and emotion…Because writing is second nature, like breathing, and without it, you would be stifling a part of yourself.

Not every person is going to like you, understand you. Not every reader will appreciate your words or the work that you put into your writing.

But then again, others will.

It’s impossible to fully understand what every reader thinks of your work, as every opinion is different, stemming from their own preferences, values, and experiences. What’s important is how you feel; what matters is what this writing means to you.

Write because it makes you happy. Write because you have stories to tell and experiences to share.

Write because you can’t imagine doing anything else.

Just write…Half your battle will be won.

This is probably the most honest blog post I’ve ever written about being a writer, stemming from emotion rather than reason, my own insecurities coming to the forefront this past week. It’s something I’m recently struggling with, it’s something I know other writers and creative types struggle with, and so I wanted to put it out there, raw and (mostly) unedited. This entry is cross-posted with my other site.

It’s 2:45am, and I can’t sleep, even though my dog is curled up next to me, snoring, dreaming. Words and ideas for blog posts and stories are starting to invade my thoughts, but slowly…too slowly. Suddenly, for the first time in months, I feel like I’m forcing myself to write, wonder if I even want to put these thoughts down, tired at the idea of reaching for that laptop or pen and paper.

Suddenly, for the first time in months, I’m afraid to write.

I think that writers are naturally sensitive with their work; truly, each sentence, each carefully selected word, comes from a part of yourself, and every time you put a thought down on paper, it’s like giving up a piece of yourself, leaving you more vulnerable as you show it to the world. Through your writing, you’re saying, “this is what and how I write because this is who I am,” and it’s up to the readers to love it or hate, to determine if it’s good, worthwhile, and you can’t help but wonder if that’s actually an extension of yourself.

It’s a dreary, frightening thought that I’m not convinced is 100% accurate. As a reader, too, I like to think that we’re all able to separate the words from the person; however, as a writer, that self-consciousness, awareness, fear, exists — a small seed of doubt that is planted and can grow if fed with too much criticism, fostering self-doubt.

And self-doubt is always the writer’s greatest enemy.

This past week, I’ve struggled with my writing — both blog posts and stories (I won’t even mention the novel…that’s been my Achilles’ heel for months and a topic I’ll cover soon). I’ve written posts for twenty(or)something, I’ve met with my writing group and used these challenges and prompts to come up with snippets of a story, the beginnings of what could be something. Only, I feel a bit ashamed of the posts I wrote, believing they’re not my best; and that creativity that has inspired me, motivated me these past few months? I feel like it has dried to a slow trickle. Even Annie, who is usually scrambling for attention and has so much to say, has stopped talking.

Or maybe I’ve stopped listening…

I write, and I feel like a fraud. Suddenly, I question myself: who am I to call myself a writer? Who am I to encourage others to find inspiration, to motivate themselves, to foster the writer inside of them when I can barely string a few words together to make a coherent sentence? My credentials and experience seem juvenile when compared with published authors; my portfolio seems woefully small.

Am I a writer?

Or am I just an impostor? Playing a good game of make-believe, fooling everyone, including myself?

Deep down, I know the answer. Deep down, I know that every piece of myself screams “writer.” I feel the word itself living within me, pulsating through my veins, even as these words are forced from my fingers where they once spilled forth easily, naturally.

But that self-doubt keeps me frozen, keeps those stories locked away, small pieces of inspiration barely slipping through the bars of a self-made cage.

It’s the writer’s greatest enemy.

And it’s time to do battle against it.



What battles do you face as a writer and/or blogger? How do you contend with self-doubt and these often irrational insecurities? How does this often unfounded fear hinder yourself and your personal and/or career development?

Part II: Battling Yourself: Fighting the Fear of Writing, coming soon.


Note: After expressing these thoughts recently to a friend, I was told that there is something called impostor syndrome, which is a very real, very crippling manifestation of these thoughts. While I do believe a lot of my own feelings are due to a temporary case of self-doubt, I’m very aware that this exists and wanted it to be acknowledged.

Even if your hope has burned with time
Anything that is dead shall be re-grown…
I felt this thing I can’t replace
When everyone was working for this goal…
You will be fine.
Angels and Airwaves, The Adventure

I’m not quite sure what it is about recent posts by other bloggers that inspire me to question what these topics and thoughts mean in relation to my own life; however, I do know that this is what blogging is all about — community, conversation, cementing opinions and gaining new insight. I want to thank these bloggers for sharing their thoughts, sparking this conversation, and allowing me to go off on tangents. Blame them.

Ryan Stephens of Ryan Stephens Marketing recently wrote an insightful blog post where he discussed the idea that people from all walks add value to your own life, shaping it in ways that sometimes can’t be foreseen because you’re constantly growing, changing, and re-evaluating goals and dreams and your own version of success. Priorities change and values are reshaped, and what you once felt was so important may begin to shift as others take its place.

“Some days I want to be a millionaire by the time I’m 35. Sometimes I want to do enough to support a family, and spend as much time as I can with my family and friends. Occasionally I want to find a small liberal arts school and teach online marketing, personal branding, etc. and coach their baseball team to 5 national titles.”

I’ve been grappling with the issue of what the definition of success is for awhile. It seems people are constantly talking about the importance of being successful, and envy tends to rear its head when you see someone accomplishing what you can only dream.

Only, is it really your dream?

I’ve come to a conclusion that success is relative; it means something different for each individual. And just because someone else is achieving success, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t, that you haven’t already.

I think that we tend to get so caught up in competition with each other — wanting to be the best employee, parent, blogger, writer — that we fool ourselves into thinking that this is what’s important, losing sight of what we really want in order to “be the best,” in order to be what we perceive is successful.

This competition is great in that it motivates us, makes us work harder, helps us strive to do more and be our best, but sometimes the landscape of our passions change, and so do our priorities. Sometimes, that dream of being a millionaire at 35 doesn’t seem so important when you find out what it means to have a family. Sometimes, you unexpectedly realize that coaching a little league team is just as fulfilling as playing in the major leagues.

Does that mean that you’re settling? Giving up on a dream?

Never.

It means that you’re changing, re-evaluating your life and what is important to you, basing your version of success on those values.

Personally, I always equaled being a successful writer with being published, and being an author is a dream that I’m never willing to give up on. However, as I follow through on other passions, I’m beginning to find the value in what I’m doing, able to appreciate how far I’ve come, and able to see that, in my own life, where happiness and family and love is so important to me, I’ve achieved that measure of success.

And I know that I’ll continue to do so as I continue to grow.

It’s important to honor each success as they come, no matter how small they might be. We shouldn’t compare ourselves with others; what’s important is how we acknowledge what it means to us as individuals.

Don’t negate how far you’ve come just because you haven’t yet reached that top tier. What you may find is that it shifts as you change, as you grow, as you re-evaluate your life and discover and rediscover what matters most.