INNER CONFLICT

By Sharon Ewing

I’d been introduced to the works of famous authors throughout my educational career and while I loved to journal, never identified as a writer. All the authors I knew were famous people. How smug to even place myself anywhere near the company of these renown men and women.

But what about those of us who maybe never aspired to be famous; those who simply feel compelled to record our thoughts, our memories, our stories that maybe no one will ever read? I began a diary in my teens and have a stack of journals I’ve kept through the years that attest to my passion for writing. Yet, I’m only now getting used to the idea that this fervor for the written word means I am an author.

A few years ago, a fellow parishioner stopped me and commented on an article I’d had published.

“I didn’t know you were a writer,” she said.

I almost said. “I’m not.” Instead, I smiled and thanked her for her kind comments. I just thought of myself as being lucky, not as being good enough to be called a writer.

Despite my poor self-concept, I continued writing; still journaling, memoir items, inspirational, short stories. I couldn’t help myself. I needed the written outlet to feel complete and finally was forced to admit my addiction, albeit a good one. The problem wasn’t with my passion, my heart, my love of writing. It was in my head. My heart and head were in conflict and the only way I could change it was with self-talk.

That’s proving harder than anything I’ve attempted to write. “You are a writer.” I say this as I sit at the computer. “You can be a good one and will be one day.”

So, like everyone else who writes, I have those days when my fingers seem to fly across the keyboard and I become so engrossed in the story that I become one with it. Unfortunately, I have more of the days when I’m convinced that even if my story is ever complete, no one will want to waste a minute reading it. That’s when my head takes over and refuses to listen to my heart.

Maybe I also need to stack my journals nearby so I can see the passion that led me to record my thoughts for years on end while working, raising children, and keeping house. Whatever it takes, I find that I need to stoke the embers of passion each time I sit at the computer, bringing heart and head together, even letting the heart have a handicap out of the gate.

I am a writer.