Just over an hour ago, Anne Lamott posted the following to her Facebook page:
Writing: shitty first drafts. Butt in chair. Just do it. You own everything that happened to you. You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart–your stories, visions, memories, songs: your truth, your version of things, in your voice. That is really all you have to offer us, and it’s why you were born.
It’s a message I needed to read. More, though, it’s a message I need to heed.
My words really are all I have to offer, even if they are disjointed and fragmented and even if they drive people crazy. My blog posts are the shitty first drafts, at least in some cases; in some cases, they are the shitty tenth drafts. But they get my butt in the chair, most days. Ultimately, they are for me, not my offering for someone else, though.
That having been said, some days, I’m afraid to write what’s on my mind for fear someone will find it and discover what I’ve been thinking. That could reveal me to be either the demon they’ve always suspected or the coward beneath the demon’s mask. I want to write the fear and the anger and the love and the confusion I feel, but they’re in solution with their opposites (bravery and gentleness and hatred and certainty), coursing through my veins and my brain so fast I can’t catch them.
So, instead of writing this afternoon, I’m going to absorb more experience so I might have something to write about.
Holly, interesting you should mention use of a nom de plume. I once wrote a blog (the remnants still exist in the ether), under a name that I may, one day, use for a character in a novel. Or, at least, a short story.
Nom de plume, Mister Swinburn. Create one and use it. Anonymity engenders bravery and honesty. Take it from one who knows.