The Courage to Create

In the past couple of weeks I’ve found my mind often drifting; moving… like a mental atlas of years gone by. I think with the realization of having achieved a lifelong dream, and the fact that my dream will soon be part of my physical world, it has caused a sort of self-inventory within me. The passages of time that brought me to where I am today. The many trials and tribulations and struggles I fought to overcome self-doubts and self-sabotage. The courage I mustered to keep on keeping on.

Courage is the refusal to quit. Courage is tenacity. It is TRUE belief in oneself. Any writer who lacks courage in their lives; lacks the main ingredient for success. Before you think to yourself, “What a ridiculous comment! What can take less courage than sitting in a quiet place to write?” Let me define what it really takes to be a writer.

It takes the courage to open a vein. To allow a world who could care less to have an honest and open look into your mind; your thoughts; your soul. It takes the courage to stand before firing lines of agents, editors and publishers who will take the liberties of being your judge and jury where talent or lack of it is concerned. It takes the courage to look at the overwhelming number of impersonal rejections objectively and to read and see them objectively. If they have that infamous scrawl: “Sorry, not for us” or the form salutation of: “Dear Author” it takes the courage to carry on and not crumble because your creative ego has just been crushed. It takes the courage to be alone with yourself, your thoughts, the silence for hours, weeks, months, years on end…daily.

It takes the courage to create and continue in the face of failure after failure. It takes the courage to painstakingly pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and continue after the many falls. It takes the courage of being at the bottom of Mt. Everest, knowing the climb is going to hurt like hell, but also knowing you will make it to that top. It takes the courage to go ahead and quit if you must…for today…but knowing you will be back at it tomorrow.