Sep 26, 2013

The Writer

I am a writer. Inspiration is a big red river that flows from the recesses of my heart to just under my skin right out to the blank paper. I bleed. I bleed every time I write, or I write every time I bleed. It's cathartic. I have a gushing stream beneath my skin and all I need to do is break the dam and let it run onto the page. It comes out striking, shocking, bold, beautiful and I lie back; it is finished for now.

I have these big ugly problems and if you took a good look at me you'd see them all, every imperfection, and it makes me an unattractive person. Too mopey, too dull, too black and complex to be bothered with. It's boring in real life but it comes out in words nice and pretty.

I publish. I sell big-time. This is the dream of every girl like me. They like me now. People find me honest, relatable; people feel I articulate their own inner selves and the universal pain so rarely expressed. At the book launches and café interviews, they ask me, what experiences made you want to write about this? Where do you get your inspiration from? And your strength? You write about how your ugliness makes you beautiful. How do you see yourself now? Looking back at the old you, what would you tell yourself?

It's like once I've sold my copies and made it big they expect me to be a different person now, beautiful through and through, confident and radiant, past the brokenness. As if the pain I wrote about is all so distant now.

The cameras and the sales don't change who I am. I am still a bleeding red mess. I still write, just more carelessly and less elegantly, because now I don't need to worry about how well it'll sell. I haven't changed. See, writing is far less beautiful and glamorous than it seems. It doesn't change your life. It's simply the by-product. And fame or glamour or accomplishment will never change who you are. I will still be as broken, as boring and imperfect, as unattractive. Only God has that capacity to change a person, make my entire being a past so seamlessly.

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