Writers write. At least that’s what dream hampton says on Twitter when she exercises the discipline to leave tapping out bursts of updates in favor of longer form writing. Real writing. That gets published. In books. And magazines.
Me, not so much.
Chile, I’m a lie and the truth ain’t in me. I be saying I’m a writer, but I don’t be writing. I say I’m published–which is true–but am I a practicing writer? Nope. Lately, my writing is bad, real Bad, Michael Jackson. Typos, missing words, passive voice and wrong punctuation. The layers of rust are embarrassing. I soften it up with, “I’ve been tired. I’ve been busy. I’ve been tinkering with other projects. I’ve been transitioning to the Dark Side.” (I won’t dare fix my mouf to say “uninspired,” because J-School beat that right on out of me, along with fact errors.) The truth, doe? I’m lazy. Dassit. Lazy. And scared.
I’m scared.
I’m scared to write.
I’m scared to write and scared to fail at writing.
There. I said it. Well, typed it, rather. Now that it’s in the open, I can move past it. Hurdle over it. Or, slam it like that ruthless kid on the playground used to do with the tetherball, wrapping the cord to the bottom and fear has no chance at winning. And I’ll walk away smug. Why? ‘Cause I outsmarted that punk.
