Author: Betsy Horvath

Exhibit A – Chuck Wendig over at the terribleminds blog put up this terrific post  last Wednesday about doubt and writing and finishing what you start.  Please take a moment and go read it.  (By the way, if you’ve never read this blog before,  potty mouth language is used with abandon.  If this offends you, feel free to substitute the word “flock” or “freak” for the other “f” word.  But you should still read it. 😀 )

This post pinpointed EXACTLY the way I’ve been feeling.  I’m at a point in my work in progress where I feel like it’s a piece of pretentious crap. I’m at the point in my “career” where it seems like a joke. I’m stuck in the mud, mired in doubt.  The voices I’m hearing in my head are the ones you hear whenever you try to take a step forward, when you, an ordinary muggle, make a break for the fences.  Doubt, doubt, doubtedy doubt. Bad, bad, smack-self-in-face doubt.

So Mr. Wendig’s post struck a chord, as his posts so often do.  In it, he’s mostly talking about NaNoWriMo, but his advice works even if you, like me, are merely trying to slog through your next creative endeavor. Just the acknowledgment that other people feel the way I do, helped. Just the direction to throw off the expectations of myself, other people, and society at large, helped.  I stopped, took a deep breath, and said “yes, I can do this.  I can finish this. I can finish what I started”

Or as the penmonkey drill sergeant says:

“You can do this.
You will do this.
This is who you are and what you want.
Don’t stop.
Don’t blink.
Keep writing until the writing is done.
The end.”

Sir, yes sir! And thank you, sir!

No. Really.

But every once in a while, life or God or the universe or whatever you want to call it, slaps you upside the head so you’ll pay attention. That’s when you get down to the basics.

So, last week when I was driving home in a blizzard-like conditions on untreated roads because I had to deliver groceries to my elderly mother, I was not thinking about my goals.

While I listened to the tree branches popping and breaking all around my house, when I looked at the 60-70 foot cedars and spruces bowing under the weight of the snow, when I realized that the 90 foot oak across the street was bent almost double, I was not thinking about bad reviews or my Goodreads rating.

When the power went out and it was cold and dark and quiet, except for the wind and the breaking branches, I was looking for light anywhere, not worrying about NANORIMO. When I realized that my mother’s electricity was off as well, and her cable digital phone was dead, and the only thing she had for communication was a cell phone she does not diligently charge, I was not thinking about my author brand or the fact that I didn’t have an internet connection.

When I was trying to think of how I could help my mother stay warm and what I could take her to eat, when I was wondering what I would eat myself, when I was wondering if we’d both have to abandon our houses and I’d have to leave my animals and find someplace with a little warmth, I was not worried about the fact that I’m still working on my next book.

Stephen King said in his book ON WRITING that “art does not support life, life supports art”, or something to that effect. And I think he’s right. Because when it came right down to it, life won. The bare essentials of survival won. Heat, shelter, food, and family won. Last week, life pushed the reset button for a lot of people here in southeastern Pennsylvania, and everything else became meaningless.

But now the power is on again. Now that there is warmth and food again. Now my family is safe again.

Writing is not an essential of life. Warmth and food and shelter and family and friends and love are essentials of life. But I’ve realized that for me, writing is part of the magic of life. It is something I enjoy, something that I love.

And now that the reset button has been pushed, I can once again see how incredibly fortunate I am to live a day-to-day life where I have the opportunity to do it.

It’s all about perspective.