Doing the scary thing

Vulnerability hangovers, and a sigh of relief.

“You can do anything you set your mind to”

My mother used to tell me when I was an anxious little girl with big dreams.

And she was right.

In sixth grade, I wrote a story about a golden retriever and won my elementary school’s writing festival. I got a ribbon and the opportunity to go to a writer’s convention in Portland where I had the chance to meet some local authors.

I remember one of them signing my book, “Keep writing!” and I did.

My brother had a big ole Macintosh computer in his room and I would often stay inside on rainy days to write stories as a kid. The stories — both fantastical and realistic — found their way into my mind, one by one; the details flowing out of me faster than I could even type them. My imagination has always been wild. In high school, I took creative writing all four years. It was my saving grace.

For my senior project, I wrote a 300 page story inspired by the book ‘The Fault in Our Stars’, a story I loved at the time. My story was about a boy with leukemia.

I remember my teacher writing on my submitted paper, “Keep writing!” and I did.

Modern day poetry found me later in life. I knew I loved classic poetry from poets like Sylvia Plath and Mary Oliver. Then Tumblr opened my eyes to the style of writing poetry in lowercase, and focusing less on the punctuation and more on the feeling you are trying to convey with the words. Rupi Kaur is famous for spearheading the revolution of young poets who don’t need to be confined by traditional poetry rules.

I found myself writing little poems in my journal and notes app on my phone. Some days I would be unable to get out of bed but I could still write poetry.

Then, an idea was born. I saw other young people successfully self publishing poetry books online and so I thought, why not me?

Well, self doubt, crippling stage fright, and ADHD, among many other things kept this dream from becoming a reality. But I was talking to a friend recently about how long it took me to accomplish this goal and they said, “This is the book you were meant to put out there”. I really needed to hear that.

I can’t imagine it being any of the other iterations I had come up with over the years — Sunshine, Daydream, Sea Of Light were all names of various poetry books I had titled but never put out. Now it feels like it was always meant to be ‘Belonging Somewhere’ and this specific collection of poems.

I hope this catapults me into the writing career I have always dreamed for myself.

For any aspiring writers out there, the book ‘Big Magic’ by Elizabeth Gilbert was deeply life changing for me to read. At the time I read it, I was just beginning to share my poetry and snippets of writing online. This was in 2016. My writing wasn’t “taking off” like I was seeing happen for others. It became frustrating to me. I wanted to become an author — I wanted to make money off of my writing like I had imagined for myself since I was a young girl.

And yet, it wasn’t happening. It wasn’t being received. Some people liked it. But not enough to sell books or anything. And so, just like Elizabeth Gilbert advised in ‘Big Magic’, I took the pressure off of my writing. I kept at it, but without the desire to become famous for it or make money from it.

I just wrote. And then one day, I started painting, too. That creative endeavor then turned into an entire snowball of its own, and became my job for many years. I started selling my artwork, opened my own business, and had countless art shows. Writing was still there; it was still a love of mine. But I let my art have its moment.

Here is a quote from her book on this subject:

“But to yell at your creativity, saying, “You must earn money for me!” is sort of like yelling at a cat; it has no idea what you’re talking about, and all you’re doing is scaring it away, because you’re making really loud noises and your face looks weird when you do that.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert

Now I am focusing on my writing more than my art. I still love painting, but over time, writing became easier to do while also being a stay at home mom.

I finally had the capacity and the space to devote my energy to writing full time, without expectations. I started this Substack, and it became a bestseller. Then I found a common theme for all my poems, and finally created the poetry book I was meant to put into the world.

It still feels scary — and I have woken up with a vulnerability hangover every morning since release day and said to myself, “Well, shit. I can’t take this back. A part of my soul is really out there for good. I actually did it this time.”

There is a sense of peace about it as well. Like with my paintings, some people resonated with them enough to want to buy them and hang them in their homes. That is a great honor that I still feel undeserving of sometimes. Similarly, the fact that anyone wanted to read and hold my words in their hands, feels surreal.

Some of these poems I wrote at nineteen. I am now twenty eight years old, with so much life under my belt, and a whole ass book out in the world now.

All I can say is finally.

This is only the beginning.

Isabel