HOW TO REMOVE THE FEAR OF
WRITING
without surgery
1989 by Angela E. White
Sheer boredom coerced me
into action. How could I possibly spend
another dreary lunch hour
vicariously escaping into another writer's pen? Solitude was preferable on days
such as that one. Had it been almost two
years since the last time I played matchmaker with my thoughts and paper?
Out of desperation, I
rummaged through the magazine rack with its wares proclaiming in vivid imagery,
"Buy me!". Stumbling on a
writer's magazine whose headline wailed, "What are you waiting for?",
I snatched it up, adroitly defending myself because it was less expensive and
more productive than passively reading ingredient labels.
The revelation that I
carried motivation to the cashier's counter didn't seep into my idle
brain. At least not until after I felt a
reminiscent compulsion to do something more with pen and paper than doodle
little stick men in fourteen different colors and poses.
The panic that set in would
have driven a saner person to distraction. What was I thinking of? Sure, I wrote inane satires in high school, a
few emotional entries in a journal, and kept notes in an appointment book; but weren't
those symptoms of an adolescent amateur?
Was I, a mature adult actually contemplating the thought of exposing
myself, exhibiting my mind's meanderings? No, I just thought I needed to exorcise a
whim.
All I had to do, I advised
myself, was scribble a few lines of gibberish and I would be cured without
withdrawal.
Only one fault with this
diagnosis: I couldn't even attempt to record anything. The obsession grew to a
feverish pitch. Instead of tossing and
turning in the blackened night, remedial ideas pranced before my shuttered
eyes. Memos at work, textbooks at school were edited and refined within the
dusty attic of my brain. These shadows
never made it to the two dimensional world of paper.
When I opted for self treatment,
senility crept in and I couldn't begin to remember what ideas I had prescribed. My mind reflected the blank pages that
accused and confirmed my cowardice.
Never one to relinquish
control beyond practical standards, I forced myself to regain my composure and
my perspective. So what if it was merely
a whim, a dream beyond the scope of a shimmering horizon? It was still an inbred bodily function
necessary to a peaceful existence, a tumor which had to be removed before it
destroyed.
So I wrote. I wrote letters, I resurrected the old diary/journal. I took notes and doodled on messages. I pacified the symptoms but I didn't cure the
disease. I couldn't write for mere self-expression
and introspection; I had to write for someone else. I wanted to create an unbiased reaction to
the power of my thoughts, my ideas,
my emotions.
I've only just begun to
cauterize the wound. No doubt I'll be
afraid and rejected, laughed at, and ridiculed.
But for now, I'm in a blissful state of remission.
