Before you read this post, I want you to watch this
video. And if you've already watched it, watch it again. Seriously, it's worth your time.
Done? Okay, here we go.
Over the past several months, I have found it a struggle to write and it has been bothering me. I don't know why, but I go through phases where I love to write and I find it a joy to see my thoughts down on paper. Then like a scorned lover, my love of writing departs and I hate everything I type. I want to write. I have sat down to write. But when I have opened up my laptop, I have just sat there and stared at my screen dreading even putting down a single word.
No, I'm not bipolar. I don't lose my love for life or other things, just my desire to write. It has been a difficult thing for me to grasp.
I love stories of all sorts. The medium doesn't matter to me in the least. I've found amazing stories in fictional books, movies, documentaries, live theater, TV shows of all shapes and sizes, video games, radio shows, music, epic poems, listening to other's talk about their lives, and even text books. So it should be no surprise that I've told stories throughout my life on stage, in written form, through role playing games, even playing with my action figures and LEGO sets. I LOVE stories, and yet, that love is not enough to overpower the fear that cripples my ability to see my thoughts come to life on the page.
My one desire is to tell the world my stories and to support my family through those stories, which is why this inability to write that drags on for months at a time terrifies me.
At least, it did terrify me.
You see, until Sunday after having a good conversation with my father, I had no idea what was preventing me from writing. And now, I know what it is, and I know how to fight it. I'll let you know what that fear is later on in the post, but for now, I need to fill you in on what happened to help me see what was keeping my fingers from the keyboard.
Let's go back to the video that I posted above.
On Saturday, I went to a good friend's birthday party. This friend, whose true name I shall avoid but will address her as Irene, loves Bob Ross. Really, who doesn't? Irene said she has always wanted to throw a Bob Ross party, so she and her husband decided Saturday would be the perfect time for it. I decided to attend because why not? It sounded like a lot of fun.
After a great potluck meal, we cleared the table, broke out our modest paint supplies, and watched that video I posted at the top. And you were wondering how I would tie Bob Ross into a post on writing.
Something clicked on in me after I first listened to that song. I hate that phrase because it doesn't do justice to what happened that night, but it's a start. Surrounded by a rainbow of paints, sets of brushes, and a mess of canvases, I felt invigorated. It was all so new and familiar at the same time. The smell of the oil paints filled my nose and took me back to years past when I would sit in my mother's workshop and watch her work and paint along with her with my watercolors. I cannot recall putting oil paints to canvas before Saturday, but it felt like I was coming home when I made the first stroke of white on white.
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| My Happy Little Painting |
After watching and re-watching an episode of "The Joy of Painting", we all walked away with something incredible. My painting didn't turn out like Bob's in the slightest, but I find myself not caring. I had done something new, I had created in a way I have never done before and it was invigorating and therapeutic at the same time. It was like a part of me that had long been sleeping had awoken and was ready to go out and see what else it could do.
On Sunday, I spoke with my father about the experience. About the joy of creating for sake of creating again rather than struggling to find the perfect words. My father, who had a big smile on his face as I spoke to him, told me about how he struggled with perfection in his projects. He is a woodworker, by hobby, and has made some wonderful creations out of simple blocks of wood. He said that he would struggle for weeks worrying about ruining a project by making the wrong cut. Then after weeks he'd say "Oh, what the heck," and go for it.
It was then that I realized what had been holding me back in my own writing. You see, my love of creating hadn't gone anywhere. It was still with me, it had just been overpowered by my own desire to perfect my craft. The fear, my crippling fear that has kept me from working on advancing my writing career, has been perfection. I was demanding perfection of myself because I felt it was needed otherwise my books wouldn't be good enough to put bread on the table. I realized that I couldn't have been more wrong.
No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. And it's OKAY! We make mistakes to learn from them and move on. I was letting my fear of making a mistake hold me back.
And I owe it to Bob Ross and my father for showing that to me.
Bob Ross has a saying, and I may just have to find a way of getting it on my wall. He likes to say, "We don't make mistakes here, we just make happy accidents." With that thought in mind, I cast aside my perfectionist tendencies and wrote on Monday night this week. I wrote for the first time in weeks and, much like at the Bob Ross party, I created out of the joy of creating without the need for it to be perfect.
And it was wonderful.
