To Whom It May Concern: Just Show up

I am a gifted writer. I didn’t do anything to make this emerge perse, it was a teacher who saw a spark in me and then blew on it. Then, friends would blow on it to make it more of a glowing ember. I’d be asked to pen something for a wedding, a party, a retirement, or a class. Those encouragements pushed me to study more. I minored in English with a writing concentration in undergrad and sought ways to workshop my styles until I found my voice. However, I am a lazy writer.

I find a rhythmic beauty in getting poetic prose to dance across a page, painting wordscapes of our feelings and connecting others to themselves through a transparent, honest approach. For years I would be inspired and sit down with words pouring off my fingers. Sitting for hours making sure the words got in just the right order. Even in this, though, I was lazy. I have always allowed the inspired moments to dictate how successful I am in getting the words down on paper. That is where I have failed in large part. As I have gotten older I tend to live less inspired than uninspired, which has led me to wasting a lot of time squandering it. Some of the greatest lessons I’ve been learning about how to steward this gifted talent is learning to show up in the uninspired moments because that will fight the laziness.

I am working on an anthology, for print, of essays I’ve written. I am working on two larger pieces that work together but require their own research. It makes me laugh how much research it’s taking because my first dream as a kid was to be a Supreme Court Judge. I thought I wanted this until the 7th grade, when I joined the debate club and realized I hated research. Journals are high-level language that put me to sleep! When I was an undergrad, I had a professor who told us what research assistance requirements we’d need to get his recommendation for a graduate program. I remember scoffing under my breath, thinking how I would never go to grad school! Ten years later I found myself in a graduate program learning not only how to research but how to conduct research to answer hypotheses. Now, five years removed from earning my master's, I am spending days in research to support the essays I am developing. It’s a solid lesson to learn to not scoff at attaining skills, even ones I don’t appreciate, because somehow, somewhere, I end up using it…for the most part. I'm still waiting on tenth-grade geometry to come in and save the day.

I sat down for a set amount of hours at my laptop last week. For two days, I wrote pages of notes of research for my topics. Two other days I showed up, sat at my laptop, stared at a blinking cursor (and out the window, at the wall, at the ceiling), and progressed no more than two words for any of the three writing projects sitting on the top of the pile. One day, I booked a trip to the beach as I sat at the computer, but I did show up. I think what I am learning is to show up in the uninspired moments, too. When I sit down in the uninspired moments, though they feel painful, I see them producing a seeded work that will usually bear fruit into a larger piece of some kind. Sitting and waiting for the inspiration to hit produces less fruit than the faithful show up in the long term. Sure, the inspiration can birth beautiful pieces, but the calculated pruning and development of the inspiration is what creates the finished works. 

I love to have written. I love to connect with a person in my writing. But I can only do that if I have actually written something, not just thought about it or talked about it, but put the work in. A friend once gave a metaphor that, “you have to be in the water to catch the wave.” I love that thought. It’s not fun to sit out there, I’m sure. I am a beach girl, not a wave girl, but I can grasp the concept. 

So, to whom this one may concern, here’s to catching the wave…whatever that may look like for you in your life. Suit up for the wait, but getting in the water is going to be the best way to jump into that thing you have that you need or want to show up for. The uninspired tides of life will give way to more movement for greater inspiration; keep getting out there! I’ll meet you on that wave!