My Favorite Kind of Writing

I always knew I wanted to be a writer.

No– I always knew I was a writer. I still am. 

I am one of those kids who grew up to be exactly what I wanted to be. I often stop and wonder if this is a result of nature or nurture. Somebody complimented my language comprehension when I was a child, I ran with it, and to this day I am beaming with pride whenever someone likes my writing.

But I never stopped writing. Even when no one was looking. And that was the easy part. The not so easy part was sharing it with people. The scariest part of writing, for me, is pressing the “publish” button and knowing someone else— anyone else in the world with internet access— can stumble across my innermost thoughts and press “subscribe.” I can let words flow out of me like water gushing through a drain pipe. But knowing that other people are receiving it, interpreting it, seeing their own version of my story… terrifying.

See, I used to only write for two reasons: for myself, and for school. 

I wrote as a way to vacation into my imagination. I befriended my characters, bounced from planet to planet, and spoke my own language. I filled binders and scrapbooks full of fantastical plants and animals, songs and poetry, people and places that I would have never known had I not written about them. I have a shelf of journals dating back 10 years (and counting) that document my life experiences and emotional development. I understand myself, and thereby the world, better when I write about it. This was always my favorite kind of writing. 

I also wrote as a way to earn praise and validation from the adults around me who appeared to hold my future in their hands. I wrote the way they taught me to, with my grammar in check and my sentences on a short leash. I used their templates, their formulas, and their theories to craft essays they wanted to read. I received a streak of gold stars, but rarely was it for my favorite kind of writing. 

Seldom was I praised for the kind of writing that came from the soul. And seldom did I share it. What if it’s silly? What if people think it’s no good? Am I exposing too much of myself? Am I exposing enough? More terrifying yet, what if someone I know reads this? What if the people I write about know my stories are about them, and they are enraged by my portrayal of their character? Even more humiliating than that is if I share my writing with my most trusted friends and family, and they don’t read it. They say they skimmed it, never saw it, or it simply slipped their mind.

A wise teacher once told me that you have to first learn the rules to know how to break them. I paid my dues learning them, and I do believe I have earned my right to break them as I please. 

I created this blog to serve as a sort of professional writing portfolio. It sat stagnant and dormant for years. I had very little content that was up to par with my standard of shareable writing, and still no one read it. If I had nothing “professional” to share, and no readers to receive it, then I was writing for no one but myself. Somewhere between junior high and college, I must have forgotten this was my favorite kind of writing.

Tim Krieder once said, “If we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known.” Another wise teacher once taught me that.

If we want the world to love us, praise us, accept and celebrate us, then we must first bare our hearts to the world.

And that is horrifying. It leaves our most tender parts open, available for the poking and prodding of strangers’ skepticism. It opens us up to the reality of rejection. If we reject ourselves first, then we can never say the world rejected us because we never put our true selves out there in the first place. Once we make the courageous act of loving and accepting ourselves as we are, we risk rejection of our true self, and that hurts a lot more than rejection of the false self. But if we never take the risk of true rejection, we will never experience the ecstasy of true love. 

I must admit this blog leaves me feeling raw and exposed at times, like a piece of meat hanging above a shark tank. But that was the point. To write the way I want to write. About what I want to write, how I want to write, when I want to write about it. And it’s not for anyone else. Just me.

All that being said, if you like my writing, your support means the world to me. I would be honored if you subscribed and shared this with anyone else you think might relate. 

From the Work Your Light Oracle Cards