Become A Writer

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” ~ Stephen King

I have always loved this quote. Not only is Stephen King one of my absolute favorite authors, but he is also a master storyteller. I aspired to be like Stephen King from a rather young age. Then I didn’t write. I didn’t write, and I didn’t grow as a writer. I would ask myself, “Why am I not making it as a writer?” But then I’d hear Stephen Kings voice telling me that if I want to be a writer I need to write, and to read. Not only was I not writing, but I pretty much quit reading. This is the worst kind of failure; the one that is in the realm of self-sabotage. I wasn’t making mistakes and learning from them. I was literally looking my dreams in the eyes and saying, not right now.

I was suffering for all the wrong reasons. I can’t stress enough that suffering is going to happen. But struggling because you’re working toward your goals is at least rewarding. The question came down to why? Why was I struggling? And what was making me willing to stay in this negative struggle? The truth is that I was riddled with fear and a feeling of unworthiness. I was a physically tough kid and had an emotional and mental toughness but deep down inside I couldn’t get past the thought that I wasn’t good enough to grow out of that street life. So, instead of being honest with myself I acknowledged that I wasn’t a writer because I wasn’t doing it. This was, of course, the truth, but it wasn’t honest. Because it was paired with other, unrelated truths:

• I need to help take care of my family.
• I must take care of myself.
• I have children to take care of (I was a baby with a baby).
• I haven’t gone to school for writing or taken writing classes.

The bullshit excuses were many. And why? Simple! I couldn’t be honest with myself, I couldn’t take responsibility for my life, and I couldn’t see that I had a right to be persistent in all areas of my life. Especially the things I didn’t have yet wanted. Yet again, this was even something that was hard to reconcile, because if I wanted things, I would get them, but none of those things had anything to do with the future of my life. I lived for the present moment, and the present moment at that time was very empty and meaningless. Sure, I had a lot of people around me and I had things and I laughed a lot. But I wasn’t living my life. I was living someone else’s life, specifically, someone else’s past.

“It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

Not having any formal education was my greatest crutch. I would “plan” to take courses to become a writer, but never did therefore I couldn’t become a writer because I’m gunna take some writing classes soon. What I wasn’t acknowledging, unless it was convenient to, was that I had natural skill as a writer. And all I needed to do was write and have the courage to believe that I belonged there. So, I hid from that world. I didn’t meet other writers. And I lost much of my natural gifts. The worst part of living in a momentum of the fear of success is that eventually that feeling of fear becomes this debilitating prison which we come to defend. This devastatingly damaging prison becomes part of who we are, it becomes a familiar part of our story and we find it difficult to divorce this part of us despite the fact it is insidiously killing us before our time is meant to be up.

It wasn’t until I became a single father when I began hearing the ridiculousness of my excuses. More specifically, when I embraced the idea of being a single father and made peace with the fact that it was me, I no longer had anyone else to blame or to use as a codependent crutch. I knew, at that point, that I needed to become the father I always thought I was if I wanted to make an impact in the lives of my children and grandchildren. That is the point where my excuses made me feel physically ill each time, they passed over my tongue. After this extremely hard pill that I swallowed I had to face the hardest truth. I am still a writer, that is who I was meant to be. But I fucked that up for myself up to that point. I would have to divorce my narrative, which was beyond painful, and start writing new chapters of my life.

“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” ~ Stephen King

One of the hardest parts of my story to divorce was that I had natural talent. I always had this bullshit thought that I could do this whenever I wanted to because I had talent. Well, talent goes away when it is not used. The problem is, under these circumstances, the talent goes away, but the false ego doesn’t. I had to work and become comfortable with working hard. Not only with hard work, but meaningful work. Additionally, I had to be okay to be judged, to be laughed at, to be mocked and walked away from. This was one of the things I was afraid of, rejection. And, when you want something you’ve never had you need to be okay with rejection.

I am still growing as a writer. It turns out that when a person experiences as much damage, both external and internal, as I have it takes a little longer to reach goals. And that is okay, I am moving forward daily. I am slaying the monsters and becoming the most self-accountable person one can be.

Thank you for reading, your support is so meaningful.

For more of my work: https://linktr.ee/JasonLWhite