By Bryan E.
Robinson
If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it
is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and
creativity. —Eckhart Tolle
“Welcome uncertainty?”
you might ask with a grimace. I realize that’s a bitter pill to swallow. First
of all let’s get one thing straight. I’m not on crack, and I haven’t been
sniffing the furniture polish. Now that that’s out of the way, there is this thing
that most of us writers carry to our writing desks.
Uncertainty.
When certainty is
upended, it can feel as if the ground beneath us has opened up, threatening to
swallow us. Like most people, we count on predictability. Our very survival
depends on it. We want to know who, what, when, where, and how things will
happen with our work. We never know if our days and months of blood, sweat, and
tears will pay off. Whether we’re first timers or seasoned old timers, we
wonder if we have it in us. Will the words come? And if they do, will it be
good enough for the readers, editors, and publishers. Uncertainty is our
constant companion, but that isn’t the problem. How we deal with it can either
propel us to success or sabotage our writing efforts.
Uncertainty is baked
into the writer’s life. It’s one of the few certainties we can count on in the
topsy-turvy literary world. Resisting uncertainty doesn’t get rid of it, and it
doesn’t give us anything to count on. If uncertainty is unacceptable to us, we
only amplify our fear and end up at war with ourselves, arguing with the
writer’s life rather than living it. Things won’t always go as planned. Our
writing will go awry, unexpected events will blindside us, and we will
experience disappointments and rejections.
There’s a payoff to
accepting uncertainty before we sit down to write. When we can avoid grasping
for certainty to cushion our fall, we won’t succumb to fear of the unknown. And
we gain a peace of mind that reduces fear and contributes to our creative
writing. This acceptance sustains us through the tumultuous literary world and
frees us from the clutches of writing woes: a lousy review, an impossible
deadline, a bludgeoning rejection, impassable writer’s block, sounds of
crickets at book signings, and the seismic rumble of our own spewing torrent of
self-doubt.
We have the choice to
stew in the uncertainty of the writing life or change our perspective. Taking
the risk of stepping into the arena of “maybe” grows us as authors. It loosens
us up to the fact that for every possibility there are numerous ways a
situation can resolve. It’s possible to live in serenity without always having
things our way or knowing a definite outcome.
Instead of arguing with
uncertainty and letting it hold us captive, why not accept the challenge to
welcome it with all of its upsides and downsides? The writer Danielle Steel
said, “Sometimes if you aren’t sure about something, you just have to jump off
the bridge and grow your wings on the way down.” What edge can you go to in
your writing today? What unpredictable bridge can you jump off to sprout your
wings?
Take a few moments to
contemplate the uncertainty in your writing life. Consider the risk of
welcoming it with openheartedness and open arms as you might a lantern guiding
you in the darkness. Then see if you’re able to accept unknown future writing
outcomes no matter what, using them to grow fully into the writer you’ve always
aspired to be.
___________________________________________________________________
BRYAN E. ROBINSON is
consulting editor for International Thriller Writers’ online magazine, The
Big Thrill and past coordinator of their Debut Author Forum. His
latest books are Daily Writing Resilience: 365 Meditations and
Inspirations for Writers (Llewellyn Worldwide, January 2018), and
the thriller, Bloody Bones (forthcoming). His debut novel, Limestone Gumption: A Brad Pope and Sisterfriends Mystery, was a multi-award
winner for best psychological suspense. He maintains a private psychotherapy
practice in Asheville, NC and resides in the Blue Ridge Mountains with his
spouse, three dogs, and occasional bears at night. He is currently working on
his third mystery/thriller, Michael Row the BODY Ashore and Crazy
Papers: A Southern Memoir. His website link is
No comments:
Post a Comment