A Work in Progress

Progress: forward or onward movement towards a destination.

The thought of doing the catwalk at a fashion show and falling in front of everyone leaves me with this sunken feeling in my chest.

When I was in England walking through Kew gardens I stumbled across a scene that has stuck with me. A little boy was running around a field with this girl around his age following him around. The boy quickly changed directions and jolted out onto the main walkway but fell flat over on his face, scraping his knees. As he did this the little girl ran over and plopped herself on the ground next to the boy, giggled down at his level and then helped him up.

Before the little girl went over to the boy the look on his face was utter failure. His eyes welled up with tears and he was clearly a bit ashamed to have fallen in front of a bunch of people. However, as soon as the girl went over and got on the ground with him laughing it off perspective set in and he giggled with her and they stood together. Soon they were back at the game they had been playing in the field.

As some already know I’m in my final year of undergrad. This year is a breeze in comparison to the preceding three. I’m taking ‘Professional Writing, Guitar, Marketing and Leadership,” yet I’m an International Development student. I guess you could say I take after my mother in that I aim to get the tough(er) stuff out of the way first!

In last weeks professional writing lecture my professor spoke about the three keys to be a successful writer. All you keeners reading now would be a good time to get out your notebooks. She said this:

1) Develop the ability to give criticism and to take criticism.

2) Self-awareness: be able to assess and to know what you do when you write. What are your rituals? What are your strengths/ weaknesses? How do you get started? (brainstorming, verbal processing..) What inspires you?

3) DICIPLINE! A good writer will practice and be faithful with their time. It’s important to schedule in time to work on whatever your genre is.

I was laughing to myself as she went over these three things because these were all practical things God had been speaking to me about for over a year now. Specifically in terms of my writing from prose, poetry, songwriting and short essays. A blog seemed to be the most viable solution at the time. As space to remain accountable to the imaginary readership. I set a goal last year to blog once a month. I think I missed June but well made up for it in July. Does that count?

The thing is that I was realizing that I wasn’t just going to wake up one day and be Margret Attwood, Hopkins, Manning or Martel. It was going to take courage, understanding and diligence.

Now these three things would have been really freaky for me if I hadn’t started to implement this thought process into my life because I don’t like to share my work in progress. I only like sharing it when I’m finished, when it’s been perfected to what I see is the best. I mean who wants to fall smack dab on the pavement in front of a bunch of people? The problem with that logic is there is only one set of eyes. Only one frame of reference and maybe there was something to be taken out of the minor or in some cases major imperfections. What is it about us humans that are so afraid of failure? I mean we’re going to muck up, not every time but we will and we need each other to help work out the kinks.

It’s interesting that criticism is such a scary word today. We don’t like it. We don’t want people to disagree with us and we certainly don’t want people to dislike what we create. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but there is only a “like” button on facebook. I guess we don’t want to step on anyone’s social narcissism, myself included.

I can see how this word has negative connotations. Criticism often feels like an attack on identity. But it’s not. We are not a product of our doings. WE ARE ABSOLUTELY MARVELOUS BEINGS with UNLIMITED POTENTIAL. I mean how silly would it have been for me to have assumed the boy who fell on the pavement was his fall? That's ridiculous. The boy was still a boy learning to play and had a fall along the way. So what if we thought of criticism as something positive instead of negative? Instead of looking at it as an attack against our identity look at it as a key to accessing more of the creativity that’s inside us.

This comes in waves for me. Blogging was tough because I simply didn’t want to offend anyone. I didn’t want to mess up or be wrong. However, I suddenly realized that I had a voice and even if no one was reading; I could imagine a reader. Who knows when it may be useful to someone else? It's really not all about "I;" it's about "us."

Songwriting on the other hand is a whole other story. I haven’t really being playing that long but I’ve been writing since I was a girl, mostly ideas really. The thing is, I’m a woman now and my ideas are growing, my experiences are greater but somehow sharing it with the world seems harder.

Just recently I posted a couple new tracks to my ‘bands profile’ on my facebook page. They are just some really rough garage band recordings with my acoustic and I. Even though they aren’t finished and they definitely don’t sound the way they do in my head; they are still valid. They are pieces of my creativity in process. I think it’s just as important to share our shadow side as it is to share ourselves face on. I mean we get to see the process of the seasons changing, a sunset forming or a night sky dissolving. Sometimes my favorite parts are the beginning moments as opposed to the peek finally.

We shouldn’t be so worried that by trying something we may be going off track. It’s not hard to get on coarse as long as we’re in motion.

James 3:4

"take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go."

I'm learning to know where I'd like to go and in that let go. I mean it's not all up to me. I can't do it all on my own but I can do my part by practicing, by letting others be a part of the process. I guess I'm learning that as I move forward I can trust that God will steer my ship to where my heart and his heart meet; a place where our deepest desires are not far off from each other.

Being a woman who has pretty strong opinions and not to mention a will, I’ve had to learn to hold an open mind and moldable heart. This doesn’t mean not having a backbone; it just means not being so set in my ways that only I always know what’s best. It's a place where I'm trusting that when I fall there will be people who will come along side me, giggle and help me up.

Where do you want to be going? Is there movement?

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything” –George Bernard Shaw

"If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything." – Win Borden

"Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional" - Roger Crawford

"Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure." - George E. Woodberry

"The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything." - William Connor Magee