The New Year
Published on Dec 12 2011 | Filed under: For Writers
I have always been just like everybody else when it comes to the whole “new year” thing. I reflect, I regret, I smile in thank you that I survived another year and I am shocked at how fast it went. Pretty typical. But that doesn’t make it any less real and actual to me for emotions are emotions. I will probably cry when the new year is counted down, kiss my boyfriend, hug him and say thanks no matter how bruised and bloodied I might be over the actions of others and my own failures of the year before. There are some people in this world that sit down and even write a list on what went right, what failed and, finally, what they need to do throughout the next year. I have attempted to be this organized and have always found that such stringent planning, at least in my life, have been utterly futile. I have many things to be thankful for and that is enough. I decided to devote this blog entry to my writing lessons this past year and support them with quotes:
The longer the writing project, the deeper and more debilitating the page fright … The mistake, I think, is to strive to banish doubt, to see it as the enemy. Just as courage has no meaning without fear, faith has no meaning without doubt. They’re the yin and yang of all aspiration. — Dennis Palumbo
I love this quote. It reminds me that doubt is natural and will never go away. Instead of attempting to demolish doubt one needs to learn how to write and live around it. Courage is the key. Courage is doing it anyway even though you are scared shitless. The courageous people are not the ones who are without fear, they are the ones that do it anyway. Simply put and amazing and very inspiring. Doubt is natural, so is fear, they will stand with me for the rest of my life and I hope that I have the courage to stand hand in hand with them and let them teach me how to be stronger.
Don’t say the old lady screamed – bring her on and let her scream. — Mark Twain
Love, love, love this quote! I can totally see this old woman, I can hear her heart pumping in terror and panic. Bring her on and let her scream! No kidding, show don’t tell because I want to be standing beside her with my ears ringing, I want to feel my own body panic and cringe.
Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right. — Henry Ford
This is going back to the subject of fear and doubt. If you don’t think you can do it then how could you? And this is where I believe fear and doubt both have the power to make us stronger. Fighting them is futile, learning to live with them and accept them is where courage grows.
You think you want space and order, but sometimes pressure and disorder is more fruitful. — Nicci Gerrard
This is incredibly inspirational for me. As a writer how many times have you thought, “if I could just get some quiet time, turn the phone and the spouse and the kids and the pets off, then I could write well.” This is nothing but an excuse not to write because, quite frankly, that’s not ever gonna happen. And the truth is that in that pressure and noise, we do have a chance to become our most brilliant.
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language/And next year’s words await another voice. …/And to make an end is to make a beginning. — T.S. Eliot
So, let us allow the past to fall into an ended chapter in our own books, something published and over that can never be tinkered with again. No more editing, no more touching or adjusting, this is it, put the pen down, no point in going back to it like a tongue on a broken tooth. Our past is what made us, what should never be forgotten, but what can never be changed again and the best idea I’ve ever heard is to consider this ending as only another beginning, and may be this one might be the very best beginning we have ever had.
To be inspired is to laugh at doubt and fear, to be inspired is to let your heart lead you. To never let another person tell you that you are romanticized — Tarah L. Wolff
I would like to end this blog post with my very favorite quote of all time:
The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.