HERE’S WHY YOU’RE AFRAID TO SHARE YOUR ART!
Adrenaline runs through your veins, giving you those good chills!
The chills that tell you - this is it! THIS IS MY STORY.
You have done it!
You have finished the story
That idea that has been nudging you for, idk, years!
The one you fell in love with. Couldn’t stop thinking about.
The one you HAD to let out
The one that felt scary and scandalous to even think about, much less write.
That story, those characters, those scenes that made that flame inside you light up like a bonfire at a midwestern high school party on a farm in the middle of nowhere
the kind of fire that drives you to make out with someone behind the barn and dry hump them over your Gloria Vanderbilts which get just a little bit wet
That’s the same fire that drove you to put pen to paper until you fucking completed it!
AND NOW, you are holding that completed story IN YOUR HANDS!
You can feel the paper.
You can smell the ink - as if you printed it on a vintage mimeograph
but it’s not THAT vintage because you remember those machines because you are of THAT AGE! That beautiful age that KNOWS! THINGS!
FUCK YES You are a woman of a “certain age”
You have earned this. you are wise, funny, sassy, sexy, sarcastic, profound and god damn brilliant
You've created a masterpiece.
And now you are HOLDING THE PROOF IN YOUR, I wish I had used more Ponds Hand Cream, hands.
THIS is your story! THIS feels alive. THIS is what you were always meant to write!
BUT…
You are afraid to share this one. It’s dark. It’s scandalous.
You are nervous to talk about it in certain circles.
If they read this, what will they think about you? What will they say?
To their friends? To their friends friends. To the entire community?
Will you even be able to hang out with them again?
Have their kids over to your house for playdates? Will it reflect poorly on YOUR CHILDREN?
What will your partner think? You Mom? Your conservative Uncle in..Kansas?
Or worse: Will you be canceled? Burned at the stake! FUCK!
Of course you are wondering ALL of these things. Of course you are scared. THIS is what we have been taught all of our Emily Post lives.
We have been taught that OTHER PEOPLE’S OPINIONS of US, OUR WORK, OUR ART - is more important than OUR OWN opinion
More important than that titillating feeling you get from letting this story out, more important than your dreams, your desires, your EVERYTHING!
What Mrs. Geraldine Bolthauser, your Mom’s bridge partner from the 80’s thinks, is WAY MORE important than what YOU think. Obviously.
“We don’t talk about such things in our house - keep those thoughts to yourself missy.”
No wonder you feel scared. Shy. Nervous to post. Terrified of sharing. It is NOT your fault
No one taught you to trust your intuition! To trust your inspiration. Which is literally your breath. No one taught you to trust your own damn breath!
Everything our society and culture has taught you tells you that if you don’t follow the rules, if you aren’t prim, proper and polite, if you don’t abide by the customs of your family or the society, then you will be ousted, shunned, doomed to a life living alone in the woods
Which - hold up - Maybe that’s what I want actually - can I grow cannabis there? Can I bring my body pillow? My noise machine? I digress…
YOU BEAUTIFUL SOUL OF A CREATIVE GENIUS - it is time for something different
It is time for you to give us the medicine that ONLY you can concoct - with your unique and special potions in that magical lab of inspiration inside of you
We - YOUR ACTUAL PEOPLE - have been waiting over here for what only YOU can deliver to us
Don’t deprive us any longer, we are hungry - ailing - thirsty FOR YOU!
For YOUR words - the ones that heal us when we read them - that make us feel not so alone in the world when we hear you sing them, that make us think: YES OH MY GOD! WE ARE NOT ALONE HERE!
Take us to your bonfire - let us make out with your script - your novel - your song - your ART
We live for whatever you publish next. We hold onto every. single. word. you. write.
Because you speak the truth for all of us. And we, my friend, live for this. For YOU!
****You have been putting off writing your story forever. I want to show you how to STOP sleeping on your dreams and putting them off til later.
I'm going to help you break this habit
We are going to do this together beginning NOW.
So by the end of this year - this “putting it off” thing, will be a thing. Of the past.
Are you ready!?
YOU HAVE THE MEDICINE FOR THE PEOPLE. STOP HOARDING THE MEDICINE. WE NEED YOU TO DELIVER IT.