Writing is an Act of Courage

Here is a recent entry from my journal pages regarding writing as an act of courage. I strongly believe that writing is an act of courage; it’s almost an act of physical courage. You get up, you have this great idea, and you sit down to write it, and almost always what was brilliant before is somehow not too brilliant when you go to write. It’s as though you have a certain piece of music in your head, and trying to get that music out on the page is absolute hell. And so you fail. You never really get, I never really get, to that perfect thing that was in my head, so I always consider the entire process about failure. I really, really do, and I think that’s the main reason that more people don’t write. Writing is a lonely profession. It is by definition generally a solo act. Some people find they cannot be that alone, and they write as part of a partnership or a team. I am not a team writer. I work alone. I don’t always have the discipline to write. I’m afraid at times to put the truth on the page. Afraid, I guess, of what certain people will think when they read it. Especially if I write about them. That’s part of the reason writing is an act of courage.