One morning, I woke up with the strangest plot for a story that I believe I have ever imagined. The scary part is that as I worked through it in my head while washing dishes, the plot came together and the characters began to come to life. The setting was unsettlingly different – in a future world where things are not at all as they are now. They are different in such a way that trying to fully explain it would both bore you and scare you. It’s not a horror story, but it could be.

I’m being incredibly vague for good reason. The idea of what I was beginning to write terrified me. Sometimes a writing idea fills me with a sickening fear that people are going to hate me for writing it. Why should I care about anyone’s judgment, though? What do I have to lose? Well, a lot of the issues that I bring up in this new story are not exactly politically correct and will rub a lot of people, including my own friends and family, the wrong way. Of course, that’s the point of writing something controversial, isn’t it? 

But it’s not that I want to write something controversial. I’ve had thoughts running around my head for over a decade now that I need to get out- things that I never felt comfortable saying. What I definitely can say is that I now know why my creative writing has always felt so lacking, why it never goes anywhere and becomes abandoned manuscripts on my hard drive. I’m not a skilled enough artist to draw out the beautiful scenes and creatures that come into my head on a daily basis, but I am talented and skilled enough to write them out. Whether anyone wants to actually read them is another matter entirely.

I stopped writing poetry when it began to scare people. I started being called a lunatic and that I should seek serious help. I was so judged that I left my former employment in a burst of anger and said a lot of loathing things about my former bosses. There was more to the situation, but that was the last straw. I basically told them all to go climb trees and do unmentionable things to themselves with rusty utensils. I was going to bring my creative universe to life just to spite them. 

Years later, I still haven’t been successful with my writing as I feel I ought to be. Sure I’ve written a ton of interesting stuff. But creatively, outside of non-fiction, I keep stalling and sputtering. I have to become more at ease with myself that what I am writing now is not cute. It is real. It is the true nature of my mind: sometimes awfully cynical, dark, and unfiltered – but some things simply need to be said.

Not long ago, I offered a post that I never published to one of my friends as a guest blog. She liked it but felt it lacked personality, and accused me of saying it was probably originally written for a content farm. It hadn’t been, as I simply don’t do that. But I was in “professional” mode at that point back in March of 2014. After reading it over, I went back and rewrote it to sound more “human.” I became so numb to my own heart around that time. That’s why I went into such a rut with my writing. I stopped being true to myself.

Now, I have to write from the heart, and nowhere else. And so should you. Don’t let your concerns about what others may think anymore. Just write.

~ Amelia Desertsong