Making hard lessons stick

The hardest lessons to learn are the ones you have to teach yourself. This is because you have to make up your feelings and value systems in a vacuum. Everything that you believe or learn to value is essentially created out of nothing. Everyone is born with an innate personality, but after that we are blank slates.

It doesn't matter if you are surrounded by the smartest, most intellectual people on the planet. It doesn't matter if the greatest teacher or mentor alive comes along. It's up to you to evaluate how their words impact your life. What you allow in is what you have to work with. If you refuse to accept the teacher or if you refuse to understand their words, then what they say is just words bouncing around inside your head.

As long as I can remember from the time I was 9 until now writing has always colored my world. I had a rich fantasy life as a child and young man. That life was filled with my own theme music and peopled by characters that I would loved to have met for real. I made this stuff up to give a sense of purpose to everyday existence.

I wrote stories to please myself. I didn't care if they made sense. I didn't care if they were ever read by anyone else. I just wrote out of the sheer joy of creating worlds and seeing what was happening in them. Sounds simple, right?

You'd think that this is a simple process that after all these years I should still be able to do without much stress. But for some reason, sitting down at the blank page is now a terrifying prospect. It's gotten harder as I've gotten older. I've quit 'as a writer' more times than I can count. Even though I have finished a few pieces and sent them out, I've never placed it higher in my list of priorities than a sometimes hobby. The thing is, I know deep down in my soul that it's supposed to be more.

I've been digging into my heart and head lately trying to work through the bullshit that's keeping me stuck. Although I know I have a long way to go, I've learned a few things and I'm beginning to understand where my problem with writing is. It's encouraging.

Writers use what's called a voice. It's our way of identifying our own spin or way of doing things that works for us as individuals. You can read a Stephen King, Dean Koontz, or Peter Straub novel with no covers and no author credits and tell just who is writing the story based on how they use words. Not one of those three writes like the others. That's voice.

Developing voice takes years and practice. It's easy to tell a beginner from a pro. The beginner sounds and feels like a half dozen other people. You can see elements of everyone he or she has ever read in their text. The pro only sounds like him or her self. I've been told that it takes 1 million words to clear the BS out of your head and begin to write with your own distinctive voice.

With me the struggle has been allowing too many others influence into my own heart and soul. For some reason its easier for me to accept their words as gospel while simultaneously ignoring what I feel, or acting as if I don't have any feelings.

One of the parts of getting clear is getting rid of all the noise in my head. This includes outside sources and my own bullshit that gets in the way.

I mean, lets be real. If I tell stories, or if I don't, it's really no one's business but mine. The only one who can make me ignore what I'm feeling or doing is me. The only one that I need to impress with my writing is me, and I'm the only one that needs to believe that I SHOULD be writing. I realize now that until I am convinced on a cellular level that no one in my immediate family will die, or even starve to death if I spend an hour or two writing I will continue to waffle back and forth like this.

People who are ahead of me at the game of life will read this and go 'Well, that was fucking obvious.' To those people I say 'congratulations' for being smarter, but for me this is a revelation. We all move at different speeds and learn lessons when we learn them. I'm just grateful to have gotten this far. That's the benefit of learning this stuff on my own, it has more of an impact than just having someone tell me.

Maybe now, with practice, it won't be so hard to put words onto paper.