Confession

by Lee Stranahan | Sep 28, 2024 | For Artists, Interesting | 4 comments

May you live in interesting times. — Ancient Chinese curse.

A quick note to you, Dear Reader…

I’ve been keeping the good stuff from you.

Too often for a writer, I have acted as a coward. I have held back the juicy, stomach churning, nail biting drama of my life and it hasn’t been fait to either you or to me.

One obvious example is from over a year ago, when my family was living in a hotel for about six months. It was cramped and uncomfortable, it was scary some days when we couldn’t even afford the hotel for the day..but it was really interesting. I should have been writing about it at the time.

I chickened out.

I was too worried about criticism and about preserving some Image of normality. I did touch on the subject a bit at the time but I did it in a way that felt safe to me. I never really dug right into the day to day reality of my life t that time. That makes sense on a human level but as a writer, it was a gutless thing to do.

I don’t say any of this out of regret but just as an acknowledgement of where I was and where I want to be headed. I’m in another period of transition, another shedding of old skin. I’m writing this on a train speeding through Arizona at 5am, almost totally broke, in failing health and with a future that’s very uncertain right now…my family about to leave our home to move back into a hotel in the five days.

Sounds like a pretty compelling story, doesn’t it?

As I move into a phase where I take myself seriously as a writer, I need to ignore the fears that have kept me from telling the most compelling stories I can.