The Trouble With Writing Is...

There are a million things to write and a never ending supply of blank computerized pages for me to type all over and I can not think of a single thing to write. 

I used to be so creative and able to write out a whole story in moments. 

So what happened? 

Did I loose my imagination? 

Or is it simply because I fear how everyone else will judge what I write. 

For so long I have written from my heart and for many years every word I wrote has been looked over with harsh eyes that penetrate through the stack of my thoughts all the way to my soul. I have to come to realize the reason I loved writing was because it came from me and nobody scowled at it, but as soon as it left my eager hands and hopeful mind it became something I hated. Hate is a strong word, so perhaps it was not exactly hatred, but a strong dislike for what would become of my hard work. I knew that once I got that piece of joy back it would be covered in red scribbles that would make me feel like all I did was wrong and that I should not attempt to create anything with all my effort ever again. Why should I try when all I get back are words of discouragement and dislike? 

Part of being a writer is to be able to take the good with the bad and run with it all together and make your work better than it was, so much better that no one can find anything wrong with it. I, however, could not take this view so easily because I had teachers who constantly shut down all my efforts. 

I judged my own writing, as well, but apparently my own critical eye could not catch all the awful things that the red pen would later find. 

People assume that a writer is suddenly blessed with a wonderful idea and then they can write for days upon months and create something so fantastic that everybody will love it. This is not true. Writers may always have an imagination that is ready to write but we struggle with everything we let out of our minds. There is always a fear that the idea we have decided to share with the world might be hated. Some ideas take off and the world loves them. And then other ideas flop and die. A writer cannot sit there and wonder which direction their idea may go because then we would never share anything. 

I stopped sharing my ideas with people a long time ago in fear that my words were not good enough to share. A speaker needs ears to hear their words and a writer needs eyes to read their words. I wrote a short story seven years ago and to this day anybody who has read it remembers how wonderful that story was. How it had made them cry and most of them believed it was real. Now that was a powerful story, but could I ever write something that good ever again? Perhaps, but I will never know unless I share what I have hidden in my countless notebooks. 

If you give into fear you give it power. If you learn to face your fear, you give yourself power.