Writer, Take Courage: Some Thoughts on the Writing Life

by Kimberly Phinney

WRITER, TAKE COURAGE: SOME THOUGHTS ON THE WRITING LIFE

by Kimberly Phinney

The writing life is just that: a life. So, if you find yourself in the muck and mire of daily living and your wild dreams feel like the rope of time has lassoed itself around them and tamed them, then this post is for you.

You write because you are a writer.

You write because God made you this way, and quite frankly, he doesn’t make mistakes.

Your writing matters—whether 100 or 1,000 or 100,000 people read your words.

And because you are a writer, there will be highs and lows. There will be times you toil alone in the dark, and the words you bleed will only be seen by you and God. Other times, they may find a home somewhere out there. And for a blessed group, their writing may find many homes.

But writing will always be YOUR HOME, no matter what. So, you must persevere and never stop writing.

I am thinking about these things today because of an old essay I wrote about ten years ago I recently came upon, and I think it’s important that I share this with you. So that you may see the younger me grappling and finding my way. So that you may see the younger me who had something to say but didn’t have the courage or the direction. So that you may see the younger me who was searching for her voice.

Ironically, the hopeful writer you find in these lines was about to be silenced. She was just starting to find some courage, only to find it dashed again. She was about to drop out of her “prestigious” MFA program utterly broken-hearted. And when she did, she wouldn’t pick up the pen to write for many years.

The dream in her heart—the song she thought God gave her to sing—was gone.

This is my true story.

Please enjoy my old essay, and I will meet you at the end to fill in a few gaps.

ON FINDING THE COURAGE TO WRITE

2014

I’ve been thinking a lot lately—as if that’s something new... Anyway, I’ve been thinking about writing and what exactly it is that makes the writers I love so great. Why do they get under my skin? How do they get me to carry them around in my heart pocket, as if they have actually pulled up a seat at my breakfast table to sip on an offensively strong cup of coffee with me? How did they become the oldest friend I never met? Or more so, my sage?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I write these very words… as I write my novel for grad school and publication… as I compose vignettes or poems... I think about it as I lift my lens to my eye at a photo shoot (because, yes, photography is storytelling, too).

(Reader, you can find my photography business here, which I ultimately lost through my illness: www.phinneyphotography.com).

You know what the great writers have? They have courage, as writers and people. And when I say courage, I mean they tell the God’s honest truth about things. They reveal their truth by showing their humanity—for better or for worse. And I’ve realized, I am a coward.

I am a coward-writer.

I skirt around the truth when things get too prickly. Certainly, I tell a bit of the truth, but then I hide behind it just enough so that my tattered petticoat doesn’t show. I gloss over my gritty details because it’s hard work trying to convince everyone else you’re normal. It’s hard work covering up the unlovely travails of being human, and it’s painful to let all that humanness show. The idea of pity-filled whispers when we leave the room or outright rejection when we walk into it are enough to silence most anyone.

Silence isn’t an option if we are to have courage; any good writer knows this.

That’s why the writers I love would chastise me if they were here right now. They would say, “More you!” “More truth!” and “Get real!” They’d shout, “Have some nerve!” and “Get over yourself!” F. Scott Fitzgerald would find me uncommitted to my art, and Hemingway would likely scoff at me, ranting, “By God, say one true thing!”

Yet, I say half-true things—as in I reveal a truth but avoid how I got there. I say what’s on my heart without showing you how my heart’s shattered into a million pieces so tiny that I could never put them back together because they’ve embedded themselves in the pads of my trembling fingers when I was desperate to pick them off the floor.

And I’ve lied to myself, saying to myself your readers don’t want the details about your life. Who would want those details? And who am I anyway? No one, really. It’s narcissistic to share too much about you, Kimberly, and you are not a narcissist. And besides, no one likes a narcissist. Just share universal truths, I tell myself. Keep it clean and to the point. Help people find themselves. Find God. Or a resting place. No one gets hurt...

But you know what? That’s a cop-out. It’s a smooth little lie I’ve told myself for years on the quest to become a real writer.

As an artist and a writer AND A TEACHER, I want to find the courage to dig so deep at this thing called life that I excavate something that looks like something that’s new and fresh and true, but I want that something — be it a thought, a story, a moment in time — to reach so deep into you that you breathe in a way you’ve never breathed before because this new thing is you. And I want this new thing to be like a homecoming—like words you meant to say but never could, like a secret you could never tell but I just did, like a nod that you and I can make to one another across the globe because you’ve found something in me that is in you too.

And this cannot be done unless I get to truth-telling. FULL TRUTH. ALL THE WAY. NO HOLDING BACK.

That’s art. And it’s the only way.

Art takes courage. It’s a little bit crazy. It’s a tad bit unhinged. NOT HALFWAY. NOT SAFE. NO HOLDING BACK.

My favorite writers—my masters, my friends—they burrowed their way into my heart forever and ever because they dared to leave it all on the page: their blood, their fears, their triumphs, their humanity.

I know them, and so I know myself more. I never judge them for their darkest moments because I love them just as they are. And I thank them, with my deepest gratitude, for showing their humanity so I can be okay with mine. Or showing me God, so I could know him better, too. They let me know them, not because they are narcissistic or because they deem themselves more special. They let me know them because they understand that laying it all bare is the only way to the truth, and they do it because they owe their truth to us all because they are our storytellers.

Storytelling—I’m learning—is hard. Like getting-sick-to-your-stomach-because-your-guts-are-all-over-this-blank-page-and-people-are-going-to-read-it hard. Like my-mom-neighbor-friend-and-student-might-read-this-truth-that-I-have-to-tell-and-what-will-they-think hard.

But for some of us, we know that storytelling isn’t a choice. We have to write, whether we want to or not. And we know it will be hard. So, we come to understand—after some time—that rather than a choice, writing has always been a mandate on our lives.

So, I honor that mandate. I nod to it, and I vow to have more courage.

NOT HALFWAY. NOT SAFE. NO HOLDING BACK.

I want to be transparent so that my words are your words. I want you to see yourself in me and all the messy beautiful humanity that unites us.

FULL TRUTH. ALL THE WAY. NO HOLDING BACK.

Because that’s real art.

And courage is the only way through.

AFTERTHOUGHTS

1.

So, there you are, my friend. One of the braver things I wrote up until this point in my life ten years ago. Applying for an MFA, writing nearly 100 pages of my novel to get in, and then flying across the country to attend this institution was also bold and courageous.

But this direction ultimately blew up in my face. I was mocked for my faith and pollyannish perspectives. I witnessed things I wish I didn’t. And because I wasn’t about to give up on God for the writing career I dreamed of and that they promised me, I walked away.

I was an MFA dropout.

I was a despondent dreamer.

I was a wannabe writer.

I didn’t write again seriously for years on end. Instead, I hid in academia and my teaching career. I went on to get my M.Ed. in English, instead. Something that was safe and easy for me.

Then, I hid my desires and abilities and history in a quiet community. I deleted my blog with over 100,000 reads. I deleted my writer’s website. I deleted parts of myself, and I told no one about what happened.

Writing was over for me. I would be the teacher of writers from now on—never the writer herself.

And all the while, I wondered, how was I so wrong? How could God put this dream in my heart as a small child and then allow it to fall apart? I couldn’t fully understand. A fundamental part of me had died, and I was angry and lost. But in all of it, I determined I would remain faithful to my Father.

But still, for many years, I wondered why to a God that only answered, “teach, serve, and mother.”

So, I did.

I learned to make peace with the blessed life I had, even if it didn’t look like I thought it would.

But still, I asked why?

2.

Now ten years later I know the answers:

Because it wasn’t time yet.

Because I needed more refining in the dark.

Because I needed to grow more. Find myself more. Grow in Him more.

I needed to fail some more.

I needed to serve the kingdom and get lost in serving others for a while.

I needed to become a mother (miraculously) and raise my daughter with less distractions.

I needed to become gravely ill and survive.

I needed to endure slander and gossip.

Then lose my job.

Then my community.

And then lose darn near everything else.

Even my ability to walk. Even my ability to have more children. Even my calling to teach, which I dutifully carried out with all of me for almost twenty years.

And then…

I needed to learn to walk again in HIS time and in HIS way—both physically and metaphorically.

Then and ONLY THEN was I ready to write like this:

to write for HIM…

to write with courage…

and conviction…

and truth…

and beauty…

for you…

for me…

Because I had nothing left to lose and everything left to gain for HIM and in HIM.

So, writer, take courage right here—right now. You are a writer. And THIS is the writing LIFE. There will be many twists and turns along the way. Many wins that end up being losses. And many losses that end up being wins.

JUST KEEP GOING. YOU WILL GET THERE.

Trust me. I have been there. I am there. I am going there.

Let’s go there together.

You belong here,

me

KIMBERLY PHINNEY

Kimberly Phinney is a professor, counselor, and writer. She’s been published in Ekstasis, Fathom, Humana Obscura, Wild Roof Journal, Truly Co, Calla Press, Radix, The Dewdrop, and many more. She is editor and founder of this literary community, www.TheWayBack2Ourselves.com. In 2024, her poem “An Ode to Hark, Dark Nights” won the Audience Choice Award in the Bright Wings Poetry Contest with Ekstasis Magazine and Makers and Mystics. In 2023, her poetry collection won runner-up with Fathom Magazine’s poetry contest. A doctoral candidate in community care and counseling, Kimberly holds an M.Ed. in English and studied at Goddard’s MFA program in Creative Writing. She was featured on Good Morning America for a national award and teaching her students through critical illness in 2023. Her debut poetry collection, Of Wings & Dirt, will be published with Wipf and Stock in spring of 2024.