Courage

Sometimes it takes a lot of guts to be a writer. We don’t often think of our profession as requiring courage or bravery, but today I couldn’t help but be moved by an article James had sent me from one of our writers.

The topic dealt with coping with a parent’s death. Lisa wrote a very poignant narrative article about the death of her mother and all that followed. When I was done reading, I asked myself if I would be able to do the same and write on a personal event in my life.

I had an assignment on my own list to write, one on a subject that I had kept a secret from my family for the last 20 years or so. Oh, don’t worry, it’s nothing earth shattering, but it is the kind of topic that I wasn’t – and still am not – prepared to tell, even though my parents might have understood at the time.

I thought about asking to have it submitted under a pseudonym, and while I could trust Jamie to do so, I couldn’t trust the client not to screw it up. Instead, I took the coward’s way out and wrote it from an outsider’s perspective.

There are times when a writer needs to reach into the depths of his or her soul and bare it to the world. Ours is a profession of life experiences. We lay ourselves open every time we put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Whether the writing is an editorial or fiction, a piece of us goes into every letter. James and I realized this a long time ago with the characters we have created in novels we wrote. The characters lived because we lived.

I only hope the client understands how much it took Lisa to write that article and doesn’t dismiss it over trivialities. To do so would be a crime, as there might be someone else out there who is going through the same thing and needs to know that he or she is not alone.