When the Voices Lie

Knee deep in the trenches of motherhood the truth is my time is limited. I love writing so when I am not tending to the girls needs I try to squeeze writing and reading in. Reading makes me a better writer, writing makes me a better person.

Today was different though.

Loren was gone this morning and when he returned I was headed to a coffee shop to write. I had hours to work on my book but the dreaded writers block fell hard on me. I wondered bitterly as I stared at the blank screen– why today? Why do I get writers block when I have a block of time to write!? I don’t have many blocks to write so I want to make them count!

I was determined to write something. Oh it is so much better when it flows easily, but I wasn’t going to let this time slip away wasted. So I began typing something. Instantly the voices were there crowding in my mind. Who are you to think you can write a novel? You are an amateur. You really just wrote that… it sounds pathetic. You will never make it anywhere. You aren’t good at anything, just give up.

I wanted to stop and do something else. I mean those voices were amazingly rude. They were successfully stealing all my brain space. But instead of giving into them I kept writing. I wrote a chapter. In all honesty, as I typed the last word, I knew deep down the chapter was a bit silly. I knew it needed alot of help. So in a sense the voices did do their job…they hindered me. They told me just enough truth to get me to partially believe the lie and get distracted.

But they didn’t stop me.

If you have read much of my writing you know I hate waste. It feels like a waste to write a bad chapter with the tiny precious amount of time I have to write. I can stew and let those voices overtake my mind and believe today was wasted. Or I can choose to believe those voices are liars, trying their best to stop me. I can believe I failed because I wasn’t productive like I hoped for, or I can choose to believe I was victorious because I wrote something. They hindered me but they didn’t stop me because I fought back.

The only way to get good at something is to practice it. The only way to practice is to be bad at first. To start somewhere. I am at the beginning of writing fiction. I am going to be bad. I need practice. I wont get good if I never write bad things first. If I always give into those voices I will not merely be hindered, I will be stopped.

Those voices we hear that stop us dead in our tracks, afraid to move forward. They are lies wrapped in truth. They have a ring of truth to them, but just on the surface. Underneath lurks deep dark depths of deceit wanting to drag us down. When we are too afraid to push through those voices we stay stuck, we believe lies. I am not at the point in my journey where I know how to turn off those voices. But I am at the point in my journey where I am learning not to give into them. To keep going despite their rudeness.

Sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is to push through and do that thing that those voices are trying so hard for us to stop doing. They may be partially correct, we may not meet our ideal desires and be the best and most productive, but we can do something. And doing something amidst voices that tells us to do nothing, that my friend is brave.