Hello and thank you for visiting Waggish Writer.
Week 4 has arrived, and things have shifted in a positive direction between the time I shared my Week 3 updates and to this moment of sharing my Week 4 updates.
I finished and posted my first "Waggish Writer Writes" post about the Peony Garden. It was my first time playing around with the gallery function, and I had a lot of fun with it.
I enjoy photography, and it was one of the things I did when my family traveled. I always carried around a camera, the ones you had to take out of your bag to avoid ruining the film in the X-ray machine. I remember that I had one photograph that looked like a postcard of Yosemite Falls. I suspect photographs will make their way into my blogs because I have fun in taking pictures.
I also completed and posted Part 2 of my reaction to the Lord of the Rings Zoom call. It is such a treasure to watch the cast of my favorite story come to life. Other Zoom calls I am certain will make their way to the blog in time are "Goonies" and "Back to the Future." I will save those for a future date as I did have to watch the video three times. First time was for the sheer joy of it. Second and third time were to revisit those moments and what made them special to me.
I have been doing some reflecting. Why haven't I advocated about my writing to let visitors and website browsers know that Waggish Writer exists?
Part of it is fear. As someone who spent most of her life seeking to fulfill her ambitions and her family's ambitions for her success, fear to fail is something that did not haunt me until my undergraduate years. It is a creeping shadow that looms over my shoulder even now as I work as a barista and starting my venture into the world of the written world via Waggish Writer.
Part of it is perfection. I want to do well despite this being the first website that I've actively sent into the universe to share. I want to make sure that the content is good in both quality and visually.
I want to take a moment to look at my road blockers to my success. Therefore, I have written letters to the two road blockers. The first one is Fear.
'Dear Fear,
There is greater courage in sharing than concealing. There is no way I can know the result if I do not make the leap. I have hit the rock bottom emotionally and professionally, yet here I am, having climbed out of the pit not only once but twice. My first time was my undergraduate career in pursuit in being a teacher. My second time was my graduate career in pursuit in being an archivist. Why did I fall those two times?
Well, Fear, the truth is that I was concealing what I really wanted, what I have wanted since I was a little girl: to write. To create. To share with the universe my imagination. I have stories clambering in my head, characters whose voices wanting to be heard, and messages nudging at my fingers/pen to share their secret codes within the stories. Who will tell the stories? Who will be the medium for the characters? Who will transcribe the messages?
I am the only one who can. Back off, Fear. The universe is awaiting.
Sincerely,
Erin.'
Here is my second letter to Perfection, who is probably a relative to Fear.
'Dear Perfection,
What are you really doing? Are you really wanting the work presented to the universe to be perfect or are you hiding the truth? The truth is that you are attention seeking and people pleasing. You believe that you have to contort yourself to be liked by people.
What is the real result? Contorting yourself means twisting everything you believe and love, hiding it away. You present a false image, a picture perfect illustration of what you should be. That is the image that people will see. They will never see the real you beneath the gloss slathered onto your image.
Flaws are what make character. It is what people remember. There are great writers who slaughter the English language and slam a hammer on grammar. Nevertheless, these writers are still admired and respected. Why? It's because despite their flaws, their stories and messages are told.
After living what feels like a lifetime in shadow, I am done slinking in the shadows in the guise of perfecting my writing before sharing. That is why there's a stage of writing known as 'editing' and 'revising.' Just get the words out and get the story told.
Sincerely,
Erin'
In light of these two letters, I am working on increasing my visibility. Towards that goal, I owned up to the professional world of LinkedIn that I am a creative writer, self-employed, whose creative works can be found on Waggish Writer. I have also shared with a professional group on Facebook my website's existence. I will continue to work on finding ways to increase my visibility as I feel the flow is right.
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This is Waggish Writer signing off of this post. Stay tune for next week's reflections!