WRITER'S MANIFESTO

The Creative Self. I'm a writer, though you wouldn't know it most of the time. I rarely feel confident enough about my writing to share it with the world. Instead, my words fill up notebooks in disorganized bursts. I tell people those notebooks are fermenting for later use, but so far, they collect dust on my shelf, unseen.

Even as I draft this, my brain struggles against creating a manifesto, afraid to commit to an angle on the subject of writing. It gets tangled up in the fear and anxiety instead of exposing their roots. After all, those feelings are not things in themselves. I'm not just anxious; I fiddle anxiously with sentences in order to find a proper fit. I don't just fear; I fear exposing the gaps in my thinking and the scope of my point of view.

I forget that the creative process is not painless. As a writer, I take it upon myself to observe, to make comparisons, to invent people and places and have them interact in situations I decide upon. I'm actively using what I know about the world to build something unique. There will be tension. There will be criticism and rejection. There will be some measure of enjoyment and catharsis involved. There are no guarantees. And all of that is part of the process.

Which is why, of all the agendas to have as a writer, I choose to cultivate bravery. I vow to endure those tensions, to accept them as part of my mind set and thus part of the process. My courage will be rewarded - IS being rewarded right now as I conclude this manifesto. No more shying away from what I love.

Those fears and concerns will be there, but I cannot let them stop me. I must remember WHAT I fear, and that's my creative self.

[Submitted for partial credit.]