All Rights Reserved by Jennifer Johnston

The Truth

I am not sure who or how many people read what I write, or if they will ever read anything I write.  The important thing, I am starting to realize, is that I write.
The truth is while there are certainly people out there that had a harder life than me growing up, I did not necessarily have it easy either.
In my darkest times, I turned to my journal, and through writing my feelings out, I was able to find insight not only into myself but into others.  Some of these revelations would have otherwise stayed locked in my subconscious mind had I not choose to write.
Journal writing is nice because you can hide.  You can hide the darkest parts of who you are, discover the inner voice the defines you, and release pain that otherwise left pent up would destroy you.  It is a wonder to me that more people do not write.  If you have a problem verbally expressing yourself and your feelings, I would encourage you to get a book, journal, whatever you want to call it and start to write.  Do not critique yourself, just write, and in so doing you will start to find your voice.  This inner voice will start to gain a place in your head, and before you know it, you will find you can use it to better communicate with those around you.

So, what is the point of all this?  What does it have to do with "The Truth."

The truth is, we all have a voice even if we never use it.  It is that little voice that we use to talk to ourselves or work out problems in our head.  It is the voice that defines our thoughts about ourselves and others.  What we fail to realize is that inner voice is who we really are, not the voice that we speak to the world with.  If we are honest, we all know that voice is filtered, censored, and even sometimes altered.  However, our inner voice is who we really are, that is the voice of our soul.  The truth is all too many of us ignore it, suppress it, or just plain don't care to listen to it, but we should, because by destroying that voice, by downgrading its importance, we are cutting ourselves off from who we really are and even who we may become.

I know.. I too have done it... I too have justified it... but I will tell you a secret I have had to learn the hard way.... you lose yourself... you become buried in pain... you cannot bury who you are without suffocating.  The truth is, just don't do it.  Do not be afraid of who you are.  Take the pain, face the demons within, yell, scream, cry... but find your voice because in a world that wants you to be silent, it is the only thing that might save you in the end.

Death By Editing.

I have been thinking about this for a while now.  Writing, like life, is a process.  We all struggle with putting our ideas into motion, or sometimes even on paper.  I have asked myself the question why?  Why is it I cannot seem to let my story flow?  Simply put, my story has died more times than a cat has lives by the hand of editing.  I edit it to death.  I hack every sentence, question every idea, reformulate every possible direction until I have written half a book but actually only come up with barely a chapter.  And, that chapter has no where near the purity it started with.  Again, I edit it to death.  This is not to say that editing does not have a place, but when editing replaces writing, pure thought, pure emotion, then it is a problem.  I struggle with this in my writing and in life.

I have begun to ask myself, what else do I edit to death?

I edit myself.  The me the world sees is only a glimpse of the real person inside.  I think if we are all honest with ourselves this true for most of us.  However, by doing this are we editing ourselves to our own soul's death.  How long can you edit to the outside world who you are till that is who you become on the inside? Are the best and most beautiful parts of who we are edited by use of fear, self-loathing, insecurity, and are we not the authors of this editing?   And, do we as the ultimate story tellers not hold this power in our hands and let it happen, or worse make it happen? I think more and more we do.  I think more and more we become less of the authors of our stories and more of a sub-character, or even at times the villain who works against the story itself.

And yet...

Editing can also be a force for good.  Because we can edit, we can also take out the bad.   Through editing, we can identify those things that may not be working and take them out, restructure them, or improve upon them to make a story better.  This is true in life, except I think we see it more as self-evaluation.  However, self-evaluation is just another way to edit.  We can change.  We can grow.  We can learn, and it all starts with being willing to edit.  Edit out the bad, accept the good, and don't edit out who you are in the process of life.  Discover who you can become instead.

I think if I can accept this in my life, I can start to accept it in my writing, and then maybe the core of the real story of my book, and life, will find me in the process.