(Look for this week’s #WeeklyWriterWisdom questions after the jump.)
This Week’s Questions: Do you believe that writing is an act of courage? Or that courage is necessary for writers (or artists of any kind) to have if they have a project they want to bring to fruition? How has your most recent writing or creative project required bravery from you?
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Sara Letourneau 
I believe that life itself is an act of courage, and writing, as a way of filtering life, has the same quality.
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That’s a good way of putting it, Leanne. 🙂
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Yes, absolutely, Sara. In fact, I just wrote a post today that touches on the confidence required to write. Whether it is confidence in your ability to write, your story idea, or confidence in your passion to write. And in that confidence, you must have courage to push your way through the self-doubt that inevitably tries to stop you from writing.
Some days, Sara, it feels like every little task requires courage to do. And other days, everything flows so easily.
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^^ Everything you said here resonates with me so much. Confidence and courage are like two halves of a whole. You need both of them if you want to write and succeed on your own terms as a writer. The challenge, of course, is learning how to nurture and maintain both traits for when we need them most. Doing so isn’t easy, and our grasp on them will slip now and them… but we can’t forget how important they are.
(And now this just reminded me how terrible I am at taking my own advice… )
I’ll have to take a look at your post from today when I have a chance.
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I know what you mean about taking your own advice, Sara. I feel like most of my posts end up being a pep talk to me too, not just my readers.
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“I feel like most of my posts end up being a pep talk to me too, not just my readers.”
Ditto.
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I think courage is definitely essential for writers. Writing is about vulnerability and vulnerability can be very difficult.
storitorigrace.blogspot.com
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Very true. Being vulnerable either on the page or in person requires its own brand of courage.
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Oh yes. Foolhardy courage that can tip into heedless arrogance if we’re not careful… There has to be a burning need to pour forth a story taking months, sometimes years to tell and along with that, there will be a portion of our soul that also ends up on the page/screen – how can there not? If we are too timid, then we will talk ourselves out of the whole thing. Or complete it and quietly put it into a drawer and forget about it. But to then go on and submit it to the scrutiny of beta-readers/long-suffering friends and relations and then to take it one step further and let it loose on the world? Huge courage… Of course.
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To me, it’s more about the bravery of sharing your writing than of writing itself. Writing, in a way, is an easy act: nobody ever knows how it went or whether it went at all… until we share it with someone.
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Yes, bravery is definitely required when you’re sharing your writing with others. I do think it’s also needed when we’re writing about certain subjects, especially ones that hit close to home. But putting it out there for others to read truly makes it (and you) vulnerable.
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I don’t feel I need to be brave about certain subjects: it doesn’t matter until I decide someone should read what I wrote. I often write things that I know I won’t be sharing, so writing them isn’t an act of courage to me.
Until you share it, writing is like singing in the shower: no one cares about it, so there’s no fear.
Although I can see that using writing as therapy, to face things someone is afraid of, might require some courage, but then, I feel it’s not necessarily about writing (because it could be, as well be about speaking – to a friend or therapist).
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