do it anyway

Now that I've had a chance to reflect on the  writer's conference a couple weeks ago, two things stand out. One is that I am so happy that my buddy, Iris, was one of the winners. She wrote her life story. It is good. One of the chapters will now be published in the form of an essay. (With a theme, no doubt!) I am proud of her.

The second thing I think of most often is one of the speakers. This was one guy among a panoply (don't you just love that word) of cool hipster writer types. This dude writes for Esquire magazine (not too shabby), and has been doing so for ten years. He peeled back the veneer to let us know what he really thinks. I always appreciate that.

He said that, even though he is this big bad Esquire writer of a certain renown, he is basically scared crapless on a daily basis that he has no idea what he is doing. He said that every time the magazine's editor calls him in for a meeting, the dude is sure beyond a doubt that he is about to get fired. He always thinks that the next story will be his undoing, that he will come up with a big fat nothing. It was obvious that he was being real. I could tell the dude had suffered.

But here's the thing: he does it anyway. He gets up every day and writes his next story. He keeps trying. This guy is on year ten of feeling inadequate, but he's still writing, still doing it anyway. Yeah, dude!

I often feel clueless, thinking, what the heck am I doing? It is especially hard to try new things, like a blog, or writing a manuscript. But, I'm gonna keep trying. You?