Sister Act’s Words of Wisdom

There is a scene in Sister Act 2 that plays over and over in my mind when I start to doubt myself as a writer (so basically, like, all the time) where Whoopi is talking to Lauren Hill who is having a hard time admitting she is a singer and in this conversation she says:

“…Don’t ask me about being a writer. lf when you wake up in the morning you can think of nothing but writing…then you’re a writer.

I’m gonna say the same thing to you. If you wake up in the mornin’ and you can’t think of anything but singin’ first…then you’re supposed to be a singer, girl.”

While I do love to sing, what I think about when I wake up is finding time that day to sit down and write. I begin to scheme about eating lunch at my desk and getting Cam to bed early. I think about my characters and listen as they have funny conversations that play out in my head. I obsess over everything I write as I didn’t go to college and just recently learned that cannot is one word and can’t spell for poop. So, according to Whoopi (or the writers of Sister Act 2) I’m meant to be a writer. Now, to be clear, no one said anything about getting paid to be a writer, they just said that in my heart, to give my soul a voice and live my life to the fullest, I need to write. So…I write. And then I delete. And then I write again. And then I cry because it sucks.

But, I write because that is who I am, what I want to be and the legacy I want to leave.

 

Indifference

Staring at blank pages, watching them stare back at me, laughing, mocking.
They were right, you can’t do this. Who are you kidding?
They taunt me, the stark white empty spaces dismissing anything I try to add to their pristine perfection.
So I stare. My heart is breaking.
Under the surface of my imperfection, the perfect words hide. Behind my wall of self-doubt and cynicism. If I could just find them, pull them from their hiding, surely the pristine emptiness would allow me to fill it.
But the wall will not crumble,
And the perfect words stay hidden behind my imperfection.
So I stare. My heart is broken.

 

~Originally posted August 2013