The Creative Roller Coaster

I was born to write.

I have always written, since grammar school, and I have hundreds of mostly finished pieces on my laptop. Four of them have been read by my parents and sister.

Writing makes me feel both significant and insignificant. I am one voice among millions, one more person trying to put language around experience. Still, I wring my hands over the possibility of negative reactions to one short post in a sea of writers, stories, opinions, and beautifully crafted work.

Despite all my fear about myself and my writing, my soul keeps clinging to the yearning.

So why, on the precipice of 42, am I finally publishing my first words for you?

What changed?

I finally worked through the roller coaster of creating. Come along for the ride.

Conception is the simplest part. Ideas abound. Everyday life, asleep or awake, offers endless material. The idea behind this post began as a desire to help women wrestling with change, whether they find themselves unwillingly forced into it or longing for a change they cannot seem to make.

Excitement is the climb up the ramp. Day and night, the concept of the moment is enthusiastically mulled over. Notes are written, revised, rewritten, abandoned, and revived. The newly born idea is tender, and just as momentum begins to build, fear appears. It rears its head right at the top of the climb. Here, the original concept can be lost, and the first drop begins.

If the fledgling idea survives the stomach-churning fear that quiets the excitement, research takes over. Because research can happen at a safer distance, it often brings relief. Soon, relief turns into enthusiasm. Productivity returns, and with it comes the fleeting sensation of weightless flight.

Then uncertainty jars the ride around a corner.

Productivity ends abruptly. Fear finds the open door and steps back in. Those who are stubborn push ahead anyway, through frustration and into disillusionment. At this point, it looks as though the ride is coming to an end, and avoidance becomes the coping mechanism of choice.

But stubbornness can also become determination.

The ride rises again. Apprehension remains, but constructive progress begins. There is reconciliation with the original concept, not as it first appeared, but as it exists now after surviving the ride. A new trust emerges: the work has become what it needed to become.

As the final refinements are made, accomplishment arrives. Fulfillment follows.

I step away from the roller coaster a little wobbly, but content. Looking back, I can see that the highs and lows were worth experiencing. I can even admit that repeating the process would not be unbearably bad.

Maybe that is what changed.

I stopped waiting for the fear to disappear before I began.