#writingcraft: Mustering Up Courage

Personal Note: How do you like this new look for my blog? Is the picture too much or does it reflect the title okay? Will this look stick in your mind? I ask because I know I need to stop being so flippant with changing the design of my blog all the time. This frivolous changing I’ve been doing isn’t helping me establish a good following and it’s taking time away from my writing.

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When I was a teenager, I was flamboyant with my writing. I would sit Indian-style on my bed with a spiral notebook and pen, writing exactly what I was feeling at that very moment. Swear words would flow without hesitation. Descriptions fell out onto the page with no effort. There would be times when I would cry as I wrote what was in my heart.

Where did that person go? When did  indecision and nagging doubt become part of my writing repertoire?

All of that writing seems so melodramatic now. Yet, I wish that girl was still with me. As I write this, I wonder if she may still be around, leering in the darkest of the shadows, waiting for me to call her forth.

The winter holidays that have just passed us by took me for a loop this time. The last two weeks of December I didn’t get any writing done on my WiP. I even struggled to get the weekly post done for this blog.

It wasn’t that I lacked the motivation. It was outside influences that kept me from doing anything productive. Yes, I know. It’s to be expected during the winter holidays.

Number one distraction was my husband being home more often. He had the TV blasting with college and professional football games. Okay, maybe not blasting but he was sure making a racket when there were touchdowns and penalties. I thought I could deal with the noise. I’ve done it in the past. Somehow, it was just too much for me this season.

Number two distraction was a nasty cold — which might have had something to do with me not being able to handle the noise. I had Vicks VapoRub  on all the way up to the bottom of my chin trying to prevent the cold from becoming a chest cold or bronchitis. And believe it or not, I succeeded in keeping the cold from being anything more than a sore throat and the stuffed up head.

Now that all is left of the cold is the “after-cold cough”, my motivation is peeking around the corner wondering if it’s all right to come out and play. I’m hoping it will also get my creativity a boost so my writing will fly a little higher and a lot farther.

Although I feel I have been courageous in my life, it has always been with situations that needed resolution of some sort, not in creating those situations, which is what I’m trying to accomplish in my writing. This is exactly the type of spunk I need and must muster up to do a better job on this rewrite. I am the only one who can get me through the uneasiness I have when going beyond my so-called norms of creativity. No one can do it for me, as much as I’d like it to be that way.

I dearly wish that teenage girl I used to be would show herself during my writing sessions. For that matter, I wish I would become that girl of boundless courage.

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I have eight blessed hours five days a week when I can and should be exercising my creative muscle. Even though I don’t like new year resolutions, January, being cold and dreary, is an excellent time to start working on this and make it a habit.

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
― Nelson Mandela