I'm listening to Video Killed the Radio Star with headphones. Above my computer monitor are no less than six pages of writing affirmations, not a single one written from myself. I spent yesterday afternoon very close to tears, as I hunted down and collected all the scattered feedback I'd forgotten on purpose.
Seeing it all together fills me with a sense of wonder, and purpose and humility, like I don't know what these people are seeing in my writing. Besides which, I highly suspect some of my readers of praying for me, because I felt unaccountably peaceful last night and this morning. So thank you, whoever you are.
If my goal was to impact another's life in a meaningful way, than I have already accomplished that many times over. Writing that makes me feel like crying all over again. I've already done what I wanted so desperately to be able to do.
The crazy thing is, that people tell me this frequently. I frequently do get the most amazing, humbling feedback on my blog, often at the exact time when I needed it, and yet do I let that sink in? No. I glow from it for about half an hour and then I push it away and decide to go back to living in a spare, cold, challenging place where I'm certain of nothing, least of all my ability.
If only I can do the same thing in my fiction. One of my friends sent me a link to an article by another writer who was wrestling intensely with the absurdity of belief in oneself as an author. It does feel absurd, to state that one is a writer, that one is working on a novel. My soul shrinks from it. It's so grandiose. It's so unbelievable. It's down right embarrassing.
And then I get all caught up in questioning my purpose. I come down all religious on myself. Can God use what I'm writing? Should I try and make it "Christian" in some way, shape or form?
But then Christ reminds me that He works through my humanity, not through my religion. He wants my human heart, so I might as well pour it out on the page. He's always working with imperfection; it's His forte. Isn't He breathtaking? I frequently find Him so.
I don't know when this anxiety is going to go away for good, but I'll just keep doing what I can, around it. I gutted Ishi no Torii and began going in and changing it to what it will be.
