Oh boy,
Do I dig this music.
Welcome to Found Voices,
I'm Carolyn Zeal.
Hello,
Welcome to episode 10,
Risk.
Though,
I do feel that this should be Courage,
Risk,
And Repeat,
Part 2.
And I'm recording this because I promised I would.
I'm going to talk about risk,
Which came from the last podcast,
Courage,
Risk,
And Repeat,
From a story I shared.
I was in class one day.
Someone read something rather revealing and deep.
The writing was beautiful.
And someone commented and said,
Oh gosh,
That was so courageous of you to write and then to read.
And that's where Jack cut in and said,
Courage is the capacity to give.
If you haven't listened to episode nine,
Go back,
Listen,
And you'll get the full story.
And while you're at it,
Listen to all the episodes.
They're all amazing tidbits from my teacher,
From my students,
From life,
That I hope will impart something that you can take with you into your writing practice.
My intention is to help you feel more confident,
To overcome writer's block,
To build your practice,
And take a risk.
See how I did that?
Coming back to today's topic,
Which is risk.
The risk we take as artists,
As writers,
The risk we take every day when we show up in our practice and write.
And when we're writing,
We want to embrace the idea that nothing is wrong and everything is right.
One day Jack said to me in class,
Carolyn,
Write this down.
Nothing is wrong and everything is right.
Now put that on your computer.
And what that means is it's okay to break rules.
Of course,
You have to know the rules before you break them.
You want to know and be able to use the elements of all writing,
The four elements,
Dialogue,
Narrative action,
Commentary,
And description.
Then you can use those four elements in ways that you wouldn't normally use them,
In ways that may seem to break rules.
You're risking breaking rules,
Going outside your comfort zone.
You're risking willing to fail,
No matter what others think.
You're not writing for the judges.
You're writing for the gods.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever truly done.
For heaven and for future's sakes.
Robert Frost.
We are playing for mortal stakes.
We're writing for the gods.
The risk is also in letting go,
Letting go of being great,
And letting go of your talent.
We can hide behind our talent.
And when you're hiding behind your talent,
You're not risking at all.
You're hiding.
We can also hide behind our stories.
So when you're risking,
You're letting go,
Not just of your talent,
But of your stories as well.
You're allowing the journal to guide you,
To tell you what wants to be written.
You risk it all to go deep,
To go to that deep,
Connected voice.
And if you listened to the last podcast,
You know that the deeper you go,
You are actually hiding behind your deep voice because the reader sees themself,
Not you,
In the writing.
But that isn't your intention to hide.
Your intention instead is for readers,
Others,
To experience what you experienced,
To feel what you felt,
To see what you saw.
That's the risk.
That's the mortal stakes.
That's writing for the gods.
And we do that by doing our work.
It's not necessarily a struggle to come to the page and write.
That's not where the struggle lies.
We're just laying bricks.
We're not necessarily playing or working.
We're doing.
We're laying the bricks.
The mortal stakes come in when we want other people who read our work to experience what we experienced,
To feel what we felt.
And that's the play.
We're playing with that intention.
And we're playing hard.
And we're pushing that part of ourselves that goes beyond.
And that's where the courage comes in.
The courage and the risk.
This is where the struggle is in growing our capacity to give.
Between relying on our talent or pushing beyond.
Between writing our story or letting the journal write it for us.
You want to get out of the cul-de-sac of perfection.
You want to continue to expand and be willing to be imperfect.
Be willing to be bad.
Risk it all to be bad.
That's letting go of perfection.
It's not about trying to be good,
Trying to be perfect.
It's about pushing beyond that.
Getting out of that loop that keeps you small as a writer.
You have to be willing to fail.
Risk it all to fail.
That's how you expand your capacity to give.
And you want to expand your capacity to give because your role as an artist is to give.
Is to dig down deep and give.
And this is what we want to think about when we're writing for the gods.
Not for the critics.
For the gods.
And for yourself.
It's a practice.
Coming to the page.
Laying the bricks.
You're carrying water up a hill.
You don't want to make it too holy.
I know you're writing for the gods,
But the practice itself is earthly.
And if you make it too holy,
You get trapped in that idea of being perfect.
And if you're trying to be perfect,
Trying not to make a mistake,
It's hard to risk.
If you're trying to be perfect,
You'll be too afraid to risk it all.
Because you have to be willing to fail.
You have to be willing to be bad.
You have to be willing to get criticized.
To stretch beyond and try different things.
There's nothing new under the sun,
And there's nothing you can't do under the sun.
Try it all.
Oftentimes I'll hear students in class say,
Oh I can't do this because no one's going to want to publish it.
But that's not true.
You can't write for the publishers,
For the agents.
You're writing for the gods.
You're writing for yourself.
You're risking it all.
You're playing for mortal stakes.
And that's not to say that you don't want to be published.
You don't want an agent.
You do.
But you can't let that take over and infect your writing process.
You have to look beyond that while you're creating your art.
While you're writing,
Look beyond the judges and write for the gods.
What I really want you to take away from today's short little episode about risk is the idea of writers don't have to be perfect.
We're human.
Writers are human.
We're imperfect.
And we are artists.
And as artists,
We have to push beyond our comfort zone.
And the greater our capacity to give,
The greater risk we'll be willing to take.
It's that expanding capacity to give that gives us the courage to take the risk.
And when we take that risk,
When we write for mortal stakes,
When we're writing for the gods and not the judges and the critics and the agents and the publishers,
And we're not doing what we think we should do,
But we're doing what our journal and our hearts pull us to do that we can't help but do,
That's when our writing becomes magical.
That's when we become geniuses on the page.
And that's not to say that everything you write will be genius,
But the more you come to the page,
The more you expand your capacity to give,
The more you're willing to fail and risk being bad and risk having a day where nothing good comes of your writing and you think,
Ugh,
Why am I doing this?
You know you're doing it because you're drawn to it.
You're writing for the gods.
You're playing for mortal stakes.
You're willing to risk it all to expand,
Grow,
And eventually uncover your genius.
Thank you so much for listening to this short and hopefully sweet and informative podcast on risk.
I would love for you to reach out to me,
Comment on what you want to hear.
What do you want to hear more about?
What are your questions about writing and risk and courage?
I'd love to answer them,
And I'd love to help you become a better writer,
A more confident writer,
A writer that risks it all.
Thanks for listening.
Write on.
