Originate or Imitate

My need to write has always been driven by the heart fuelled necessity to work out all the shit that is going on in my life.  My first book was never intended to be a book.  It started out as a collation of notes written for pure survival.  Before I got organized and purchased a journal, a helping hand was what I so desperately needed so I created a portal on paper for all my confusion and clarity.   Writing was the helping hand I craved, it saved my sanity.   And so I called the book, “A Helping Hand”.  
Like the story of Narnia, or The Witch and the Wardrobe, when I start to write like it is like when the child in that story moves the wardrobe and discovers the amazing world of Narnia.  I too am transported into an amazing world where time stands still and I am free to explore, fly and ride with amazing wild giant creatures, be my own hero and slay all of my dragon like fears remaining safe at all times in the process.   

Writing helps me trek the rich landscape and jungles of my heart and place the treasures and junk I discover on my expeditions and lay them out on the page, like jigsaw pieces being spread out on a table large enough to accommodate them all.  Blank pages are like a table for me.  They provide a safe place to keep all the fragments of life, sort them out and find the pattern, the picture giving me insight into pockets of myself and the wild and wonderful terrain of my heart I could not discover any other way.

Knowing I have blank pages in my journal and an endless supply ready of white squares on my blue laptop screen is one of the most cherished pleasures of my existence.

Whenever I travel to another country and have to fill in the immigration card and write in the box that asks what you do for a living I always feel like I have to look over my shoulder in case someone is scoffing at me when I write the word Author.  I love that word.  I would rather write that do anything else on the planet for a living.  I am in awe of successful writers they are my heroes.  However whenever I have a long line of people after a keynote at my book signing table tell me I am their hero, I get almost annoyed with them.  I am yet to see myself fully as an author.  When there are other international speakers that have also given keynotes at the conference and the audience is lining up to see me and I sell out, I am always in shock.  My heart pounds in fear almost at the reality that they want to hear more of what I have to share.

I was given a book for Christmas that is a bestseller, and though touched by the sentiment of the gift at the same time I cringed at being given a book that I have wanted to read at some stage.   But not now.  Not when I am about to try and summons the courage to finally stop dilly dallying and believe I can actually find the self belief I need to write my next book.

The seduction to read successful authors words as a weapon of mass distraction is always strong before I start to write a new book.  To be impressed and intimidated by their craft, intimacy with the written word and insight leaves me feeling inadequate and makes me want to rethink my decision, and put it off. I find it easier to get lost in their words, than to go off exploring on my own.  I have put off writing my own words before by telling myself I will just finish this book and then I will start. And once I finish the bestseller I am so impressed and overwhelmed that my confidence to even have the audacity to call myself an author let alone sit for countless hours believing anyone will ever read my words is just too bigger ask.

So yesterday I tested the waters once more by just reading the introduction of my Christmas gift almost as a dare but more honestly it was an act of self sabotage.  After reading on the first pages before the introduction, Hilary Clinton, Meg Ryan and Toni Collette’s rave reviews followed by the tight and witty Introduction, I knew to go no further.  To gently close the book, put the book down, and step away from the book was the only adult and kind thing to do.   It was like what I would imagine walking down a catwalk simultaneously with a Super Model in the same bikini would be like.   Me with all the well earned hail damage on my thighs and bot bot accompanied by the stretch marks that I honestly care for from my two pregnancies for the world to see.  Too cruel to contemplate.  I am just not that evolved as yet.  I will pick the book up after October 2010 and not before.

I recall as I sit here and type out my own trashy and toxic fears, my own advice I gave to budding authors whilst presenting a workshop at Queensland Writers Centre a few years ago.  I spent a full day with them answering questions and sharing stories about how being published came about and what it involves.  But when I was asked to give advice about technique, method and whose work I study and would suggest they study I went blank.  All I could tell them from the heart was …

“Go blank before you write. Stop thinking.  Empty out and surrender to the process.  If you are clear enough and still enough your words will just come.  Be true to your own hearts desires and write about what is real for you imitating will just get you lost.  Originate and don’t hurt yourself by watching others, mind your own business and do your own work!”   

That’s the only advice I could share because it is all that I know.  I always drop to my knees before I climb into my writing chair in a state of surrender.  If I want to touch another’s heart I will have to touch my own first, so I invite Mother Nature and Father Time to parent my heart as I write.   Another one of my eccentric rituals that sounds crazy and corny for sure, but it works for me.

I truly believe each of our hearts territory is as individual as our fingerprints.  Our heart print is like no others.  It is original.  There is no need for us to imitate and follow others, to compare, dilute or edit our truth nor apolgise for who we are.  Easier said than done! I always write about what I need to understand, learn and remember.  Or what I need to uncover, discover then recover from.

These days my passion is driven less from the necessity to write out all the shit in my life, and more from the excitement at sharing the treasures and joy I have discovered underneath the shit.   I have spent years shoveling it away, and not getting distracted by some of its toxicity one page at a time.  It has been overwhelming and difficult as it is for anyone who chooses to write from the heart.

When I watched the movie Slum Dog Millionaire and saw that young boy wade through the sewerage to hold onto his dream my heart rejoiced.   I understood in my own way that the stink of the sewerage was never going to hold back his hungry heart.  Fear does stink, but it is no excuse for depriving yourself of a dream.

So as I close this morning I am reminded of the repetitive words my heart Mother Beautiful Barb tirelessly and lovingly reminds me of every time I try to convince her that I don’t feel like I have what it takes, that I feel incompetent, afraid and inadequate as a human being some days let alone writer … and as for author, well we won’t even go there.

Her standard response is always the same and they are my Word Vitamins I willingly take today and offer to share with you  to remind us of words from one of history’s greatest wordsmiths:

“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man”          William Shakespeare