Just finished reading Ralph Fletcher’s book, A Writer’s Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You and I’ve already poured quite a bit out into my own writer’s notebook. It feels good. For a long time I’ve been purposely not writing because I don’t want to face so many of my thoughts. But it’s not just that. Somehow I started feeling like anything that came out of me and onto the page had to be perfection on arrival. I know better than that intellectually, but emotionally I clung to that hang up. Fletcher’s book really helped me accept how closed off I’ve become. I wasn’t always like this, but I’d say it’s been a good ten years.
What I liked best about Fletcher’s book is that there is no judgement. If doesn’t matter how good, bad or silly your ideas are. Writing is a process and most of what comes out might not be “good.” But what does good mean anyway? If it came from you, it’s good, whether it becomes part of a finished piece of writing is sort of secondary. You can’t ever make a finished piece of writing without being open to whatever thoughts and ideas are flying around in your head. I love that Fletcher shares some ideas for stories he’s written in his own writer’s notebook in their most primitive form. I’m thinking specifically of his idea for a story about a place where words grow like plants. He admits that the idea might be silly, but I think that’s the point. A lot of ideas sound silly in their infancy. We’re all silly in our infancy. But if you aren’t brave enough to be silly, corny, stupid, embarrassed, even ashamed, then how will you ever be creative? I have to learn to be open to this. And I think that will be the theme of this blog: Learning to overcome fear. I am terrified of failure, and I have to get over it—here and now. Writers fail. And teachers fail. Every lesson can’t be successful. I can’t go into teaching thinking every day will be magical. And if I’m not willing to fail, I’m never going to be any good at this. By this I mean teaching, writing and life in general.
So thanks Ralph Fletcher. I will continue keeping my writer’s notebook. And I will keep your book close by to remind me that being fearless means dropping the pretense and letting yourself be silly sometimes.
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