By Kathy Dueck
Despite having
written for years, it’s been tough for me to believe in my abilities as a
writer, and send out my work. I struggle
with writer’s doubt. Maybe you do,
too. Never mind the husband telling me
over and over again that I’m a good writer; what I focus on instead is the
negative voice inside my head that says “you’re not good enough”. Despite getting straight A’s to date in the
Professional Writing Certificate program I’m currently enrolled in, I remember
what a hard slog my technical writing contract of last spring was. At one point, I was completely demoralised
when the lead technical writer changed almost every sentence of a document I’d
edited.
I got to the point
where I’d had enough of letting fear and self-doubt hold me back and decided to
take a big gulp, put on my big girl panties and overcome this inertia. I’ve become less bashful with my submitting my
words, less intimidated by the process and less willing to have my prose sit on
my external hard drive.
My stories and
articles and pitches are being sent out now. And not just to places that know
me, like our church’s newsletter.
Lo and behold, I’ve
had pieces accepted in the past year. By complete strangers no less who, one
assumes, recognize good writing. I’ve
had a non-fiction article published in a Canadian magazine and a short story, Bullying: A Success Story, will be
published shortly by short storiescafé.com who “feel it is a well-written,
empowering story that would be great to include on Short Stories Cafe.”
And, with every acceptance,
doubt and fear take a back seat. I’ve learned: nothing cramps creativity’s
style like those two “devils on my shoulder”.
Hence, I’m inspired to write and look for places to send my writing to. Word
by word, acceptance by acceptance, belief replaces fear and doubt and I dare to
hope: maybe this here writing thing will work out after all.
As for the
colleague who changed all my sentences? I’ve given her control-freaky self the
middle-finger salute.
Kathy Dueck is a married writer with two cats from Calgary, Alberta Canada. She's a non-conformist, a burgeoning activist, a recipe developer, a voracious reader, a patron of the arts [which is a fancy way of saying she watches way too many movies and TV shows], a blogger, and a volunteer. She believes that “going to church doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than standing in a garage makes you a car” and likes to think that “if church were a washing machine, I would be the agitator.”
Kathy has two blogs, one is a food and recipe blog www.chronicinthekitchen.com and the other a "personal" blog called FibroDAZE http://bignoises.wordpress.com/ where she blogs about life and sometimes about life with chronic illness. She also has a photography blog rkdphotocreations.wordpress.com in its' infancy.
