Why I write (spoiler alert: it's not to impress women or men for that matter)
A year and a half ago practically no one read this blog and the ones that did were random strangers who happened upon it. I most certainly didn't tell any of my friends and family about it. I was afraid, obviously. Not that I thought my friends and family would laugh at me or put down my writing. They love me and I know they'd say it was good even if it sucked.
The thing is, my greatest fear in life is that I won't be smart, or funny, or interesting. I always wanted to be the girl that people would say has nice personality and I always feared that I wouldn't be. I know "nice personality" is supposedly code for ugly and frankly I never cared because, to me, being pretty but dumb and uninteresting would be far worse than being ugly. Nothing would make me happier than to hear that someone said I had a nice personality.
So, I wasn't afraid of what my friends and family would say to me about my writing. I was afraid of what they would think but not say to me. I was afraid that, after reading what I had to say, they'd be out there telling the potential blind dates they were trying to fix me up on that I was cute but have a horrible personality. Of course, I'd never go on any blind dates because I hate dating but that doesn't mean I don't want my friends and family telling people that I have a great personality.
Things have changed a bit in the last year and a half. Now the most traffic my site gets is probably from friends and family. What got me past the fear? A cute boy, of course. Not that I was trying to impress him. I'm pretty sure I couldn't impress him no matter how hard I tried because I wouldn't be me if I didn't fall head over heels for a boy who would never look twice at me. If I were to fall for one of the guys that do want me I'd know I'd been sucked into Bizaro World. No, I wasn't trying to impress him, he just said something that got to me.
As I may have mentioned before, he said that true faith conquers fear (it's where I got the name for my site). I don't know that he even really meant it. He may have just been saying it for the sake of argument (which would frankly be, if possible, even more attractive to me). He did say it though and it hit me like a ton of bricks or one of those giant anvils from the Warner Brothers cartoons. It hit me so hard that I agreed, wholeheartedly (because I really did agree), rather than disagreeing purely for the sake of argument.
I started writing more after that, a lot more, because it's challenging to me. I said before that there was one in thing that I ever felt like I was really good at, that came naturally to me, and I'll tell you right now that thing isn't writing. As much as I'd like it to be, it's not writing. Writing is hard for me and writing about my opinions is especially hard given my fear that people couldn't care less about my ill informed and uninteresting opinions. But I consider myself a person of great faith and faith, true faith, conquers fear right? So I started writing more and I let my friends and family know about it, but I'm not sure I'm entirely over the fear that no one will ever say that I have a good personality.
Stay tuned though for more of my opinions about things like Super Tuesday (which is likely to end badly for me) and Charlie Wilson's War (which I should probably have know was written by Sorkin). Speaking of Sorkin, it's been a while since I left you with any Sports Night inspirations.
"Dan finally got over his writer's block. He met Stacy at the Smoking Dog. Stacy played on the women's professional beach volleyball circuit and it seems she was especially taken with Dan's writing. Dan was reminded why he got into writing in the first place. It was the same reason men do anything...to impress women." - Jeremy (Sports Night)
The thing is, my greatest fear in life is that I won't be smart, or funny, or interesting. I always wanted to be the girl that people would say has nice personality and I always feared that I wouldn't be. I know "nice personality" is supposedly code for ugly and frankly I never cared because, to me, being pretty but dumb and uninteresting would be far worse than being ugly. Nothing would make me happier than to hear that someone said I had a nice personality.
So, I wasn't afraid of what my friends and family would say to me about my writing. I was afraid of what they would think but not say to me. I was afraid that, after reading what I had to say, they'd be out there telling the potential blind dates they were trying to fix me up on that I was cute but have a horrible personality. Of course, I'd never go on any blind dates because I hate dating but that doesn't mean I don't want my friends and family telling people that I have a great personality.
Things have changed a bit in the last year and a half. Now the most traffic my site gets is probably from friends and family. What got me past the fear? A cute boy, of course. Not that I was trying to impress him. I'm pretty sure I couldn't impress him no matter how hard I tried because I wouldn't be me if I didn't fall head over heels for a boy who would never look twice at me. If I were to fall for one of the guys that do want me I'd know I'd been sucked into Bizaro World. No, I wasn't trying to impress him, he just said something that got to me.
As I may have mentioned before, he said that true faith conquers fear (it's where I got the name for my site). I don't know that he even really meant it. He may have just been saying it for the sake of argument (which would frankly be, if possible, even more attractive to me). He did say it though and it hit me like a ton of bricks or one of those giant anvils from the Warner Brothers cartoons. It hit me so hard that I agreed, wholeheartedly (because I really did agree), rather than disagreeing purely for the sake of argument.
I started writing more after that, a lot more, because it's challenging to me. I said before that there was one in thing that I ever felt like I was really good at, that came naturally to me, and I'll tell you right now that thing isn't writing. As much as I'd like it to be, it's not writing. Writing is hard for me and writing about my opinions is especially hard given my fear that people couldn't care less about my ill informed and uninteresting opinions. But I consider myself a person of great faith and faith, true faith, conquers fear right? So I started writing more and I let my friends and family know about it, but I'm not sure I'm entirely over the fear that no one will ever say that I have a good personality.
Stay tuned though for more of my opinions about things like Super Tuesday (which is likely to end badly for me) and Charlie Wilson's War (which I should probably have know was written by Sorkin). Speaking of Sorkin, it's been a while since I left you with any Sports Night inspirations.
"Dan finally got over his writer's block. He met Stacy at the Smoking Dog. Stacy played on the women's professional beach volleyball circuit and it seems she was especially taken with Dan's writing. Dan was reminded why he got into writing in the first place. It was the same reason men do anything...to impress women." - Jeremy (Sports Night)
posted by Beth at
12:10 AM
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