Monday Motivation - The Courage to Create

Monday Motivation – The Courage to Create

Lately, I’ve been getting into entomology. As a writer and someone who thinks about writers and words basically all day, it seems like the natural progression on my path to the ultimate ending of linguistics. Then I will complete the writer’s circuit and die, be made into a tree, only to be cut down to make the paper of a book. Okay, I’m getting away from myself. 

So, in this crazy world, a word that pops up over and over again is courage. It is one of those words we use a lot. “Have courage” we like to say, almost as a throw-away. It is one of those words that winds up being used into oblivion until the meaning of the word is watered down and unimportant. 

But, it is word courage is filled with power. I did a deep dive into the entomology in the word courage, only to find that it is rooted in the Latin word “cor” c-o-r. Cor means heart in Latin. Later, in old French, the word courage meant “innermost feelings.” Our modern dictionaries define courage as the ability to do something that scares us.

To put it all together, what is the courage to create? 

It is to write from the heart, to write from your innermost feelings. To write. Courageous writing is writing that counts. It is writing that transforms not just the reader, but the writer as well. It writing that empowers, that stretches, that is scary and yet propulsive. 

This courageousness manifests differently for each writer. For some, that might mean picking the pen and writing for the first time, because dear god it takes courage to start something new. For others, it might mean writing about a topic that stings. Maybe it is writing what you dream to write but don’t feel qualified. 

Courage is writing from the heart. 

All too often we get lost in the craft of writing. We want to have poetic prose that moves the reader to tears. A plot and characters who are unique and compelling. I’m not here to bash language. I am a writer. I’ve devoted my life to words. But, focusing on craft while the story lacks courage, lacks heart, will leave both the reader and writer as if something is missing from the page. 

Said another way, courageous writing is more than just intellectually learning and then mastering a set of rules. It takes more than a command of language to get a compelling story on the page. It takes heart. It takes emotion. Language is the way we bring our heart to the page, and it is amazing and wonderful, but it is the vehicle to communicate our writing heart. It is not less important than courage, but it is also not more important. 

This is one of my major gripes about how we teach writing. We focus on the brain and the how-to and not on the soul work it takes to be a writer. 

And so this week, as the world is crazy, as we feel so many new things, have courage. Write from your heart. Explore your feelings on the page. 

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