To write is to live free.......

H. G. Wells said, "The past is but the beginning of a beginning." With each new day comes a new set of choices. I have struggled so far in the month of April to find balance between my writing for short-term pay and my writing for long-term opportunities. I keep telling myself April only has thirty days my following for this blog will still be there, but fear rears its ugly head and I worry. I couldn't hold off another day from writing this blog entry. And I now feel complete again as I type.

My struggle this month is that I am bogged down in dealing with old restitutions I need to make in order to continue to be free to write when I want, how I want and what I want. In dealing with these old restitutions I have discovered some realizations about myself and the people around me. I must always surround myself with people I aspire to be like. If I don't then I am too easily pulled back into the selfish, self-centered, self-seeking person I strive today not to be. There are only two types of people in the world givers and takers. Each day I have a choice to make about who I want to be. The writer in me is the giver. The non-writer is the taker.

I must never forget my writing journey is forward and either people are with me or not with me. I gain great insight into myself and others when I reflect and write of past circumstances and experiences. It is easy to write in a non-judgmental frame of mind when all that is required for good writing is to accept that people do the best they can with the knowledge of self they have in the moment. When I bring this accepting attitude into my daily writing I am able to change the lives of my characters most times for the better, but nothing is absolute. Characters tend to have a mind of their own when it comes to learning life lessons.

As writers we cannot afford to live as others do. We cannot deny, distort or lose touch with the pain of our past lives. In order to write we must face the truth of our past, critically tear ourselves apart until we recognize our feeling are not unique, our actions have been repeated by others and finally we forgive ourselves for being human in the first place. When I can forgive myself for being human I become able to use what I understand as my authentic self and the best source of writing material I will ever discover.

I need always remember when I revisit the past I must also leave it when I am finished researching how circumstances and experiences made me feel. The past is always over and it is what I do now in the present that effects my writing today. I may be powerless over what has happened in the past, but I am not powerless over how I use it to create a prolific writing future for myself. My writing will rarely be an amends to anyone from my past. I have learned from reading Pat Conroy, Raymond Carver, A. R. Gurney and Peter Taylor that to write of what I know brings out the same anxiety in those around me that I experience. The difference between “the others” in my life and me is I found the courage to face my fears in spite of the judgment of those around me. They are still trapped and through my writing and publishing I grow more and more free. 

I am not responsible for how others feel about my writing. I am only responsible for working through my own feelings through my writing. I cannot change the choices others make of how they choose to live their lives. I can only change the way I live and express the changes through developing characters that live a life readers identify with. There are only two choices a writer ever really has. One choice is to continue on the path I am on filled with fear and not writing. The second choice is to make changes in my attitude of self-worth that will bring me personal growth and a deeper understanding of self. Non writers are too afraid to write their experience and feelings. I am a writer and all I write is a reflection of my experiences and feelings growth.

I spent years as a non-writer denying my feelings in order to protect myself from the judgment of others. I separated my writing self from my life and hid her in a closet. If I couldn't see her, hear her or feel her pain of loneliness then I wouldn't have to deal with my fear of being judged by others. I lived this way until not writing became easy for me. I lived a life of indifference; I became detached from the part of me I loved the most my writing self.

I lived in fear of being judged and that fear brought me to a place where I didn't feel good enough in comparison to others. I became less than the person I knew I was. Fear and anxiety ruled me until a teacher appeared and the lesson of no one is less than anyone else was finally felt inside of me. The shift in attitude came from understanding that "The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them." This line comes from the play The Devil's Disciple written by George Bernard Shaw in 1901.

When I realized to be a part of a fellowship of like-minded people was to stop separating myself from them I became free to write whatever I felt without fear. In order to be a writer and a working part of a fellowship of writers I must find within the courage to walk through my fear. I must write on a daily basis and write whatever is in me to say and then click publish.

I have come to a place in my life where I am safe within myself to feel my feelings and write of them without feeling a responsibility to those involved in my experiences and feelings. I do not have to live a life of shutting out my writing self by locking her away in a closet. With every word I write and every click of publish I grow a deeper love of self, greater self-worth and a deeper sense of freedom from within.

As a writer I have the ability to write of past experiences and feelings with truthful respect and in proper perspective. I can still love those around me and myself and write of what makes us all imperfectly human. I have forgiven myself for my humanness and I am not responsible for the feelings of others who have not forgiven themselves. Graham Greene said, “Isn’t disloyalty as much the writer’s virtue as loyalty is the soldier’s?” Writing of what is real and not distorted will feel like disloyalty to those who fear their feelings will be exposed in my writing.

As a writer I am loyal to my need and desire to reflect, experience and to write what feel, have felt and do feel through my relationships with other people. As a non-writer I am loyal to the needs of others and I express my loyalty by not writing. I do not write of my experiences, circumstances and feelings which are always entwined with the lives and feelings of others. Each day I make a conscious choice to be a writer loyal to myself or a non-writer loyal to others. I am a writer today loyal in my writing only to myself. I am free.