How ugly is the mind that doubts and harasses itself.
How ugly is the mind that calls itself ugly.
As I worked on my poetry book, grazing the glimpse of the end (getting the book actually published), I decided, extremely last minute, to pull a poem out and replace it with one I had written more recently.
Then, a few days later, I told the publisher I felt the book was completely ready. The rest of the process was out of my hands, and I was prepared for them to really take the reins.
Weeks passed and the first printed final edition was at my doorstep. I opened it up, excited, and read every poem as if I had never read them before. As if I hadn’t read most of them over and over and over. As if I wasn’t even, maybe, kind of sick of some of them.
And then… I spotted it. A typo. A big ‘ole (honestly, tiny) typo on the poem that I found to be so great that I included it last minute. The poem that I included was so last minute that the editors had already read through the book and made their suggestions. And it was too late to change it.
I was embarrassed. The extreme excitement I was, and should have been, feeling started to fizzle. Instead, I critiqued myself. Questioned my ability to write anything. Questioned the title of author. Questioned the ability to even hold a pen. Just because, in one single poem out of many, it says “note” instead of “not”.
How silly.
As writers, and creative people in general, we can tend to critique ourselves over things that might be, and probably are, just silly. This doubt may restrict our creativity, even if it does so subconsciously, showing itself in casual writer’s block.
The Storming Bohemian suggests, when we look back in angst, we should start moving through that angst by making a list of accomplishments. Sometimes listing my big accomplishments will make me feel like a fraud when in these moments of rut. But he also suggests listing things like, “You learned to walk and talk and sing songs. You learned to find your way around San Francisco. You learned to read, for heaven’s sake. We all start out tabula rasa. Dig if you have to. The creative road you have traveled has had some challenges and you’ve met them. Of course you have.” We are all living, how cool is that! There is something to mention in the fact of just living!
My list: last week I made lasagna (I’m no cook, so this is quite an accomplishment), I moved to a new state and actually made friends (seems impossible in the beginning), and I’ve started to read the Harry Potter books for the first time (someone should’ve told me to do this sooner). It’s the little accomplishments.
But, my own advice for getting over this doubt: no one is perfect. A simple, and possibly overused term, enough so to be made into a pop song for a popular 2000’s Disney show. While reading Harry Potter, I found myself catching grammar mistakes and typos. I hope it doesn’t make me sound like a terrible person to say this, but it made me feel a little better. One of the most well-known books and beloved stories did not become known and loved because it was “perfect”. You and your creative work, or life in general, does not need to be perfect, whatever that even means.
If you’re still feeling stuck in the mud of angst, go do something. The Storming Bohemian says to read or dance or find a class or a play or a reading or just GO! How shall one create with an empty mind? Do something that fills your mind, hopefully enough that it overflows onto the page. I almost didn’t do this part. I almost ended this with an open-ended promise, saying, “We should both GO and then chat about it next month!” I felt okay about that. I felt okay with this promise that I might not have been ready to fulfill. I felt okay on insisting that I was still too completely new to this town to go out and find an event to attend. (I moved here 8 months ago). Little did I know, that was not true at all.
The full truth is that I have missed literary events. I missed knowing about all of them and attending them, usually knowing who would be there and how it would go. I missed being comfortable. What fun would life be if we were all completely comfortable at all times?
When I realized this, I looked up literary events near me and found one for that night. It started in an hour and was 30 minutes away. That almost stopped me. It was almost another excuse. Until I realized it was an excuse.
Then I just… went. It was like something was physically pushing me out of the door.
I showed up alone and was so scared, but acted confident. I sat in the back and people-watched. I saw all of these people, people I had never seen before, getting anxiously excited.
Then I watched. It was a book reading for Tom Birdeye’s book There Is No Map for This. (The name of the book itself was a good reminder I needed). I got to see Tom light up with excitement as he told his story about finding writing after years of denying that he was a writer. He talked about his writing process, which partially consists of flashcards spread out on a counter, waiting to be moved into their rightful place in the book’s story line. He admitted that the pages he had just read to us were slightly edited from the published edition of the book, because, even when you are completely sure a piece of art is completed, you will probably want it to be slightly different. But, the thing that I remember most, was the feeling of a multitude of creative and supportive people supporting a person with a multitude of creativity. And, after eight months of living in this town, I felt at home. I didn’t know anyone around me, but I felt like we all knew each other in a way.
And I am grateful I actually listened to the muse. I am grateful that, despite the almost overwhelming anxiety, I GO-ed… (went). So, find something, and without thinking too much about it, you should go.
Natilee Shock is writing into Charlsie-Kern Kruger’s column The Storming Bohemian Punks the Muse as a way to hold herself accountable creatively. Read the whole column here.
Eat it up queen #writeroftheyear