Thursday, March 20, 2014

for when you're the {literary} odd one out

it's hard when you feel like the odd one out, when you feel like you're surrounded by people all doing one thing, all focusing their energy into something that is the exact opposite of "your thing." right now, I'm surrounded by memoirs. I'm seeing book after book moving from the hands of my friends and fellow bloggers and landing on bookstore shelves.

and it's hard when I feel like the odd one out, standing in the corner with my dragons and my faeries and my portals made of water and wine and looking glasses and I wonder, what am I doing? really. what am I doing?

I've talked about this before. I've talked about being the blogger that hasn't written a book. I've talked about my resolution to write a book in 2014. both of these are edging their way into my soul again, but in a completely different way. see, my word for this year is precipice, this thing of standing on the edge of a cliff. everything's been shed, and now I'm free to jump. right? 

maybe not. 

because I'm the blogger who writes fiction. I'm the blogger that can't seem to make memoir come out right, the one that watches beautiful personal stories flow from the hands of the ones I love and call "friend" and "inspiration" and "brother" and "sister." and I'm the blogger who, up until today, was planning on giving up fiction entirely.

it's burned me, this thing of writing magic and make-believe and inventing worlds and people from the recesses of my mind. February was a hard month for me, a month of feeling more and more drained away from the fictional calling that I've felt since I was four years old. it left me feeling silly, fragile, like a little girl who watches the butterflies flit from flower to flower, gluing wings to her back and then nursing a broken leg from her plunge from the roof of the garage. 

I might have never taken a literal top-of-roof plunge. but my soul has done it and it landed in the flowerbed hard enough to crack. it made me want to quit, to hang up my fictional scarf and don the far more practical garb of non-fiction author. this is my vulnerable, somehow, more than writing accounts of my own life. I don't know how that works :: I would explain it, if I could. 

I have a tattoo on my leg, a quill pen and flowing words :: we are all stories in the end. and it's funny that I've wanted to quit with this thing of stories inked deep into my flesh. I'm starting to realize that maybe my stories aren't the ones that match the rest of the blogging set. maybe I need to start my own set with my own pieces. my stories could open wardrobe doors. 

I'm not quitting. I can't take credit for that, not even a little bit. it's because my husband has his own sweetly blunt way of telling his wife to write though the spastic ramblings on the other end of the phone. it's because my thinker best friend spent forty-five minutes on the phone talking me out of tearing out the pages and burning them. it's because my tribe rallied around me and breathed life back into my words. 

it's because the Lion is holding me mid-air with His breath. not falling, but flying. 

so yes, I'm still writing a book in 2014. I'm still rallying around my words, or at least, I'm trying. they're just not the same words as everyone else. I'm not standing in the corner alone with my dragons and my faeries and my portals. not anymore. 

I'm stepping out and extending my hand. 

hi. I'm a writer. I write fiction. 

13 comments:

  1. from one fiction writer who's not writing a memoir and also happens to be a blogger to another. :) <3 love you.

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    1. oh dearest Lindsay, I am so glad that that you GET this and that you are on this journey with me. love you too, beloved friend.

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  2. I was thinking that maybe the reason we feel so insecure about fiction rather than memoir, is that we know we can tell the truth about ourselves - but can we somehow know enough to grasp the whole world, as well as ourselves? Enough to grow our own dazzling world from a seed of reality? It's only too easy to believe that *we* are not worthy for such a marvelous task, we don't have that skill or wizardry. Suspiciously easy, in fact ... we'll fight this lie together, dear. I can't wait to receive your magic words, or to share my own with you. :')

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    1. with words like this, I know you are a writer, precious one. "can we somehow know enough to grasp the whole world...?" that shivers in my soul. I love you, beloved...let's fight together.

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  3. I started writing the stories of my life a little over two years ago at Esther Emery's insistence. But when I finished, I started writing magical stories at my granddaughter's insistence. I love doing it. The first had fairies and butterflies and lots of other critters. The last has some stuffed animals that get outside and were saved from the bobcat by pretending they weren't alive. The best to you in your work. You are a writer, you write from your mind and wothers understand from their experience. It's all magic anyway.

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    1. Newell, this is such a wonderful encouragement to my soul. I love that you write these for your granddaughter, with faeries and stuffed animals.

      "it's all magic anyway." oh that speaks richly to me.

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  4. I am inspired! I can't wait to read what you write! I had an idea for a book this year, and I've only written one chapter. It will be very much fictional, because that is more my language. We can both do this. I know we can.

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    1. Grace, your email was the blast of encouragement I needed to get this project started. fiction is our language, yes.

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  5. if it makes you feel any better...i am the blogger without a book too..
    not one of my own at least...i am not in a hurry...i have them ready
    if i ever want to...until then i will keep my words free for taking

    and write you...write what you are called to write...and dont feel compellled
    to publish unless you are called to publish...dont do it because everyone else
    is doing it...i have seen so many lose their magic by publishing because then
    they get caught up in selling that book and forget to write

    so....

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    1. Brian, your words have captivated me for so long (and look at all the others that you draw in with that poetry of yours!). and I am called to publish, I know I am. I just know I have to push past this fear and this insecurity.

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  6. O, please don't write memoir if you are meant to write fiction. What will we do without our fantastic fiction writers? The ones who give us truth in stories ... Go, dragons and fairies! Go, Rachel! Follow your truth, always, PLEASE! xo

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  7. PS: One of my greatest moments of awakening came through fiction. It was the only way I could hear it. I treasure that.

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  8. Oh, how this resonates. For me, lately it's been.... "Bloggers have businesses. I don't have a business but yet I have a blog. I feel like I'm weird."

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I look at you and see all the ways a soul can bruise, and I wish I could sink my hands into your flesh and light lanterns along your spine so you know there's nothing but light when I see you. :: Shinji Moon