“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” – Richard Wright
The Write Words
While I want my words to stand out like the red leaves on the tree I can see outside my RV window, too often I feel they read like one of the tiny green ones hiding in the background. It's call writer's angst. -- Photo by Pat Bean
Angst and doubt about one’s ability are part of a writer’s world, at least the ones I know. We worry that the words we put out to the world aren’t good enough. And unlike the carpenter who can redo the lopsided chair he built before anyone sits on it, we writers can’t take back our words once we’ve sent them out into the world.
This past week I wrote about Custer State Park, but in a photo caption written during a brain fart, I called it Custard State Park. I later corrected the error but not until after it had been sent out to over a 100 readers.
That kind of thing is just the tip of the iceberg, however. Self-doubt begins to seep into our psyches because we can’t write as well as Isabelle Allende or Maya Angelou; and our words fall short of a Pulitzer or an Agatha.
So why do we still do it?
I don’t know about other writers, but I suspect their reasons are the same as mine: Writing is as much a part of me as breathing; I simply can’t not write.
But some days the self-flagellation is more demanding than others in questioning if what we write is good enough.
An award that brightened my writing day.
I’ve been in that state lately, which made this morning’s recognition by a fellow writer, who gave me a “One Lovely Blog Award,” so meaningful. My writing spirit was warmly hugged by the compliment that accompanied the honor: “I cannot get over this woman and the beauty and peace she brings into my life through her photos and her posts,” http://tinyurl.com/6og645n 4amWriter wrote.
Knowing that perhaps I’ve touched one life has erased my writer’s angst – for today only of course.
As a way of passing along the award to other writers, beginning today, I’m going to put a post script to my daily blogs naming my choice for blog of the day. To make it fun, I’ll call it Bean’s Pat. I’ll award it to the blogger who either makes me laugh, cry, remember, think or be awed by beauty or nature.
Perhaps you’ll want to nominate some blogs you think deserve the honor. I’ll read them as I drink my morning two cups of cream-laced coffee.
Bean’s Pat: The Fairy Tale Asylum: So Many Names Hanging in the Dark … http://tinyurl.com/7kfnz7q This emotional blog reminded me of my brother, Richard, who was the best of us four siblings. He died at the age of 35 of AIDS.
Pat Bean's blog 