The Ways We Fraud Ourselves (Especially Writers?!)

Sandra Williams of Fort Worth, Texas kindly allowed me to publish the email she wrote after reading my post, "Do what makes you happy?" DUH! That post discusses my adventures and misadventures with the concept that says

"If you want to be a happy writer, do what you love."

Sandra was also responding to a question I'd asked her as part of an ongoing discussion about outside validation she had received for her writing. The question was "Do you feel, in your own mind, you've been able to acknowledge your writing as that important?"

Meaning, important enough to be her career. To be more specific, this is about her desire to write fiction; she's already the author/co-author of several non-fiction books.

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I've found that whatever I designate as my make-a-living occupation automatically becomes my paralysis factor. I procrastinate, worry about it, feel inadequate doing it and in general sabatage myself on it. I lock myself down and freeze up in that area. No wonder my hips and legs locked up so I couldn't move! The body takes things so literally! I always feel like I'm on probation with my every output scrutinized by a crabby overseer who doesn't like me.

I can find a million and one ways to distract myself. I enjoy working around the house and in the garden. If I decided landscape designer or a home stager or interior design was my designated make-a-living work, I'd stop doing it. Argh!

I'm slowly learning to stop demanding absolute perfection of myself before I can do something. (How can we learn if we don't make our mistakes and grow into proficiency? Tell my subconscious that. It thinks that wisdom applies to others only.) The myth that writers or artists are born, not educated into the field is one that I bought into long, long ago. I took a correspondence writing course in my early 20s. One of the founders on the board of the school was quoted as saying "Writers are born not made. Either you've got it or you don't. No one can teach it to you."

I was furious. I felt frauded and wrote a nasty letter to the school about her comment and quit. In truth, I was afraid she was right and I was wasting our money trying to learn something that couldn't be taught. The school never replied. I ignored my real life, in-front-of-me teachers in high school and college who praised my writing and called me talented. What did they know?

The ways we fraud ourselves!

Sandra Williams is a popular face reader and the author of Faces: What You See is What You Get. She's my friend and my "favorite mother-in-law." Sandra is currently writing a novel; she's also an illustrator, painter, book designer, astrologist and she cranks out a mean cranberry salad. (Whew! Talented lady.) She is the author of an e-book created at my special request, entitled Face Reading for Writers, which is an enrollment gift for students of the Fear of Writing Online Course.

"It is good to share the shameful secrets of our vast fears of inadequacies. Shared, outed shames aren't nearly as powerful as secret ones."
—Sandra Williams


Related post: "Do what makes you happy?" DUH!