With an inner critic like that…..
Many of us have been there at least once, searching frantically for that misplaced diary, worried that our most private thoughts would be exposed. Pillows overturned, drawers emptied, we looked everywhere trying to find that precious book before someone discovered truths we had so carefully kept to ourselves; who we liked, what we really thought of Grandma’s Christmas gift, along with our rants, stories or worse yet, poetry.
We loved writing in our diary and knowing it would always be waiting for us to return to it later, more like a good friend than merely paper held together by stitching and glue. We told it everything and when we finished an entry, we wrote "bye" or "good night", perhaps even decorating the page with a few stars and crescent moon, like I did.
Our writing didn’t start out this way. As children writing was unguarded and free, to be read by everyone. Look what I wrote, we’d say to practically anyone within earshot, proud to show them our ideas, even if only we could decipher the letters.
Maybe we were just proud that we had formed those words with our own small, fingers - or perhaps we really wanted to share our stories. Whatever the reasons, we wanted someone else to see what we created, our eagerness a declaration: I did this and it’s important - and so are my thoughts. There was joy in the creation and the sharing.
What made us change our approach to writing? Why is it that at some point we began to associate writing with secret keeping, bolting our thoughts, stories and poems safely behind a locked diary cover? Click. The sound of security. We even hid the tiny key in alternating hiding spots. For some, though, writing didn’t become a secret activity, it stopped altogether.
There have been volumes written about how a child’s creative voice is stifled. How girls, high achievers at age 10 stop raising their hands by age 12. I don’t understand the dynamics but I have experienced them. My own writing went undercover and then stopped completely by the time I was17, only to be rekindled in my early 30s and then squelched by my internal critic that convinced me I couldn’t do it and it wasn’t important - and neither were my thoughts.
At 41, I have finally silenced that inner critic, and have rediscovered the joy of writing and sharing that writing with others. Writing is much more difficult than I remember, and much more rewarding.
A diary is now a ‘journal’ and I still use it as a private place in which to record thoughts; but it is more than that. When read in sequence it’s entries display a common thread that helps me recognize who I am and what I want - and the sound of my unique voice. Today, however, if I choose to not share my writing with others it is because I don’t want to and not because I don’t think I can.
Copyright © 2004 Pamela Hamilton
Many of us have been there at least once, searching frantically for that misplaced diary, worried that our most private thoughts would be exposed. Pillows overturned, drawers emptied, we looked everywhere trying to find that precious book before someone discovered truths we had so carefully kept to ourselves; who we liked, what we really thought of Grandma’s Christmas gift, along with our rants, stories or worse yet, poetry.
We loved writing in our diary and knowing it would always be waiting for us to return to it later, more like a good friend than merely paper held together by stitching and glue. We told it everything and when we finished an entry, we wrote "bye" or "good night", perhaps even decorating the page with a few stars and crescent moon, like I did.
Our writing didn’t start out this way. As children writing was unguarded and free, to be read by everyone. Look what I wrote, we’d say to practically anyone within earshot, proud to show them our ideas, even if only we could decipher the letters.
Maybe we were just proud that we had formed those words with our own small, fingers - or perhaps we really wanted to share our stories. Whatever the reasons, we wanted someone else to see what we created, our eagerness a declaration: I did this and it’s important - and so are my thoughts. There was joy in the creation and the sharing.
What made us change our approach to writing? Why is it that at some point we began to associate writing with secret keeping, bolting our thoughts, stories and poems safely behind a locked diary cover? Click. The sound of security. We even hid the tiny key in alternating hiding spots. For some, though, writing didn’t become a secret activity, it stopped altogether.
There have been volumes written about how a child’s creative voice is stifled. How girls, high achievers at age 10 stop raising their hands by age 12. I don’t understand the dynamics but I have experienced them. My own writing went undercover and then stopped completely by the time I was17, only to be rekindled in my early 30s and then squelched by my internal critic that convinced me I couldn’t do it and it wasn’t important - and neither were my thoughts.
At 41, I have finally silenced that inner critic, and have rediscovered the joy of writing and sharing that writing with others. Writing is much more difficult than I remember, and much more rewarding.
A diary is now a ‘journal’ and I still use it as a private place in which to record thoughts; but it is more than that. When read in sequence it’s entries display a common thread that helps me recognize who I am and what I want - and the sound of my unique voice. Today, however, if I choose to not share my writing with others it is because I don’t want to and not because I don’t think I can.
Copyright © 2004 Pamela Hamilton
posted by Pamela Hamilton at 10:17 AM
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