Confessions of a Closet Writer
I have a confession…
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I have a confession. I am a closet writer. I’m an aspiring author. I’ve written two first completed first drafts, currently on my fourth draft of one of my six novels. I write poems. I write blogs that I hesitate to put my name on and I journal.
I’ve belonged to writer’s groups, critique groups, gone to endless writing workshops and conferences, stalked my favorite authors and read countless books on how to write. I create what a writer should be, should do, or should write in my head. I hold to the rigid, tangled weave of messy beliefs that validate the inner critique that tells me to keep my words to myself. Hidden. Secret.
All the while the closet writer in me is bursting to break free and blaze out into the light.
Why do I hold myself back? Why does any writer? I’ve asked myself this question a lot over the years. The inner critique hammers me with self deluded questions, inserting its insidious beliefs. What if I’m not good enough? What business do I have writing? What if people don’t like it? What makes what I have to say so important? Oh God, what if my relatives read my writing? That would make for an interesting holiday dinner.
As a writer, my words are my guts. The inner workings of my fractured psych, a peak behind the curtain. My characters represent the flawed, crystal facets of the little, broken pieces of me. My conflicts are an expression to my perceived traumas and insecurities. My words are clues to the emotions stored deep within my hidden depths. And to release my words into the world would make me vulnerable. Oh, so vulnerable.
They would make me be seen. Splayed out on the proverbial cross, a crucifixion of my soul. Not only would it allow the masses to pick and prod through the skeletal remains of my hidden depths, but then I might have to take a deeper look. At myself. At those hidden depths I’ve camouflaged so well wrapped in excuses, rewrites, edits and the voice of my inner critique.
Which brings me to the biggest predator of all, the one that stalks me relentlessly.
Fear.
Fear is the great deceiver, the controller of the masses, the stunter of growth, the depressor of creativity, the adversary, the chaotic…
