I attended a craft meeting tonight, and while there, discussing the ins and outs of writing, I found myself compelled to write a poem. I wrote it, spur of the moment. At the end of the meeting, I read it aloud to the attendees who watched me write it. Their praise is daunting…
The drivel that I write sometimes hits me sideways like that. I don’t know why I still call it drivel, or why I think so little of what I write, even after praise. I guess I think it is just natural for me to string words together to form thoughts, and I need to disparage it because there are so many out there who struggle with stringing their words together every day.
When I look around at what writing is out there, both the good and the bad, I wonder if I just “fit in” where I am, or if there is a bigger place for me with this. Like, is there something I need to say, and if in saying it will I be changing the world? My world? Their world? My character’s world? My cat’s world?
Can my red vase on the table in the back room still be sitting there 100 years from now?
Like I said, daunting. I feel I am not worthy because I don’t allow myself the chance to be worthy because those worthy enough to write carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. Think about the authors of the Bible: Matthew, Peter, Paul, Luke. Then think: Shakespeare, Chaucer, Joyce, Shelley, Stoker, Poe, Dickens, Austen, King.
Yes, I don’t consider myself worthy, and I never will, even if my name does get added to that list. Because then I will become lazier, consider things like attending craft meetings to hone my skills beneath me, or something to that effect. Rest on my laurels as my mom would say.
Yet, on the flip side of that, all I want is to get lost in stringing my words together in ways that other people enjoy. Maybe one day, I will even get paid to do it. Maybe. Here’s hoping!