Getting stuck at the beginning…
As a writer, I put great pressure on myself to find just the right words. I do this for several reasons: first and foremost, I joyfully do this as a part of my writing and editing busines for my clients. We create a work agreement, and whatever they need me to do for them or on their behalf, I like to make sure that it is of the highest quality. Without question. But in my own writing, I find myself having trouble choosing what I want to share, or I fear that I might share too much, or that I might reveal too much of myself, for fear of offending someone, for fear of turning people off, for fear of judgement…one thing remains constant across all of these reasons…“for fear.”
The truth is that when I am writing or editing for clients, I have a distinct, objective clarity that I use as a precise tool to ensure that the intended message comes through and accurately represents what my clients want to say and share with the world. I am very proud of this skill, and I know I can depend on it. Copy editing and proofreading is even easier. Studying different kinds of authors and writing styles has built in me an ability to recognize patterns and turns of phrase, to know how to arrange words and build a structure that imparts a desired meaning. It is my passion to do this for others and help them tell their stories, fiction or non-fiction, across different kinds of media.
As for my own writing, I sometimes find myself getting stuck at the beginning…I start, I write a sentence, I edit, I begin again, I edit back to nothing on the page. Stopping and starting, finding something else to do, something to clean, something to organize. For me, I think writing can be a little like being still on a yoga mat. Until you settle into it, it’s uncomfortable to sit still in silence with your own thoughts. Ironicially, paralyzing even. I think it is similar when staring at a blank page, waiting to be filled with beautiful poetry or prose. Waiting for the lightning bolt of an idea to strike me in the middle of my forehead as inspiration. (Hello Harry Potter, please no “He-Should-Not-Be-Named” lightning bolts.)
Author Elizabeth Gilbert posits in her ode to the creative life, Big Magic, that ideas show up in different ways, at different times, but if we don’t work with them or follow through, they sometimes leave and maybe even show up for someone else further down the road. She describes an experience she had while working on a novel. She wrote a bit and didn’t feel like it was really going anywhere, only to have a conversation with another novelist years later who was writing a novel arrestingly similar to the one she had abandoned! Gilbert holds that we cannot be angry if an idea leaves us and shows up for someone else. I tend to agree with her. Instead, we applaud the person who brought an idea from concept to reality and celebrate its success, just as we would hope our people would do for us.
I believe that not writing “for fear” of anything is kind of like letting an idea slip from our fingers, or blow like a breeze through our minds and then exit just as quickly as it enters. Instead of getting stuck at the beginning, we must write. We must work it out. Get it down on the page. And if we don’t like it, we can change it, but don’t let yourself get stuck at the beginning for fear, because there is so much more to do and to see than just what is at the beginning.
Open your notebook. Open your computer and your blank document and just get it down on paper. You can make sense of it later. Or, you can let your editor (me) help you make sense of it later. If you need support to even begin, I can help you make sense of that, too. We have the tools. Let’s use them.
