Don't Be Afraid of Your True Writing or Work

Such an interesting convergence this morning. I am having three conversations about the same thing. One is happening in my dining room. One on Twitter. And one in email.

The thing?

People are nervous about their true condition.

It has been framed slightly differently in the three conversations. One person thinks her style needs to change before she can step out. Another is concerned that she can't use a life circumstance to mold an activity she needs to work with. And the third, my own daughter, began by refusing to write an assignment, because she was so angry about it she could just about spit.

Let me reign this in to the conversation with my daughter. "Embrace the anger," I told her. "It's your strongest response. Don't be afraid of it. Use it."

She is just now finishing an essay she decided to write, on the reason that hopeless literature shouldn't be the focus of a high school curriculum. She has brought in the Greeks' opinion on comedy being more important than tragedy, and she has quoted Willliam Faulkner's Nobel Prize speech. She has taken the anger of her first draft and turned it into an incisive, insightful, profound essay that should make any teacher take a second look at what he or she is using for a literature program.

Which is to say... don't be afraid of where you are. Embrace the strongest point of your experience. The thing that is consuming your time or your emotions. It is your power-point.


Signing Rumors photo by Kelly Sauer. Used with permission.