Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Courage.

Courage in writing comes in many forms. It's in taking that tiny idea and putting the words to paper. It's in finishing that draft, editing that draft. Sending it out to beta readers, critique groups, and then swallowing your pride to edit some more. In querying, no matter how many rejections you rack up, no matter how discouraged you might get, it's sending out one more.
 
Those are all courageous things, it's true. But there's another kind of courage in writing, and that's writing with reckless abandon. It's telling the story how it's meant to be told, not how society thinks it should be told. It's laying your soul bare on every page for everyone to see, to feel. To experience. To tell a story in all its truth and beauty and horror, to hold nothing back even when it feels like you should. When others say you should. Sometimes it's telling that story no one thinks they want to hear, but in fact so desperately need.
 
That is courage in writing, and I only hope one day  to be so brave.
 
"I wanted you to see what real courage is,
instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.
It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.
You rarely win, but sometimes you do."
 --Atticus Finch 
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

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