YOU KNOW THESE ARE TRUE, BECAUSE YOU KNOW YOUR BEST WORK IS BREWING

I had started writing stories, songs, poems, drawing people, things and imagining things, long ago when I was just a young boy. 

Later, in high school, I was so shy, beaten down by inferiority complex that my writing career was jeopardized. 

Few years ago, while at work, a colleague claimed I would never be a successful writer and he said this boldly in front of other co-workers. He argued writers are poor and never make it writing alone. After work that night, I walked back home in embarrassment and shame, and a positive anger to prove them wrong. I wrote a very emotional poem that night while staring at the moon and ruminating on what he said.

At one point, I gave up writing. I doubted the possibility of my succeeding. Resorted to graphic designs and software development and abandoned my pen.

Doubt had won, and thanks to that colleague who cast the spell, I had it on authority that I wasn't good enough to be a writer.

I started writing again in my always handy book, only for myself many years after that dreadful experience at work. I had an overwhelming need to write about my experience and I told my story in my poem, 'Dairy Of A Broken Poet' and 'Haunted By My Past' which eventually got a read on air. The positive response I got that day got me all fired up. 

I knew it right then that YES I CAN! 
I can be a writer. 
I am a Poet. 
I can succeed writing. 
I can prosify. 
Peotrify. 
Dramatify. 
Fly!
High!

However, before that someone had told me 'Haunted By My Past' was trash. I mean, really, how much help did my doubt need? How many perfectionists were going to tell me I could not do what I longed to do?

So I hired an editor to refine my poem as suggested, but when I got it back I was appalled at how 'perfect' it seemed to me. It read more like so many other poems I had read before. It wasn't just any other poem, it was my story, my life, and my life was far from perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

I don't write like that – that's not me. I didn't take it. I rejected the edit and stuck to the original.

Call it pride, call it ignorance, call it what you want, but I decided to send the raw, original version with only minor editing to the radio presenter. 

That version of 'Haunted By My Past' which “should be trash” has gone on to garner praise from the listeners. Many requesting it be reread over and over again. 

I'll never become a writer? I can't publish my poems? Well… I am a writer and I did publish my poems! I still do. 

If I can, YES YOU CAN!

I've been told so many times in my life that I can't do this or that. I'm not going to be the next Stephen King or Chinua Achebe and I'm never going to write like Maria Angelou (why would I want to?). 

But I'll tell you what I can do, what I have done, and what I will continue to do: I can be me. You can be you; the very best of you.

Do not let others define your progress in life. You can deal a deadly blow on that doubt and go be famous where others doubt you ever can.

*excerpts from my book - Scriptophobia* 

Click HERE to get a copy today. It's a beautiful read, trust me. 



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