The soft contours and light of the Palhouse region, Washington State, USA
By Margaret Kelly
Guest Author
Risk-taking only occurs with great courage and much tenderness because there is something deep within us that conspires to stay in safe boundaries.
No other territory of our lives exposes our power and our vulnerability more than leaping into the thrilling and terrifying unknowns of the possible. Our lives are shaped by choosing what we let go and also what we choose to begin. The precipice of the new beginning is often precarious and to step over that edge and break the patterns of our lives and reconfigure them afresh is empowering.
To begin something though—a new practice, a new project, a new love—is to cast upon yourself a spell against stagnation. Risk is, therefore, the crucible of a creative life. One mustn’t be afraid to do something wrong sometimes because we create with our mistakes. Everyone in this room will one day be gone, and we will either have made something or not have made something; achieved or not have achieved. Every time death happens in my world, I’m reminded that it’s pointless to be safe and not take risks. Usually, wherever you don’t want to go is a potential gift from you to the world.
Dreamers who lack courage to take risks and perseverance to stick to the task rarely get published. The blank page or screen stares at you sometimes, and says, ‘You can’t write for shit.’ Usually it has a booming outdoor voice like my ex-husband’s (God bless his critical tongue and his self-centred soul!). For me, to stare at a blank screen or a blank page and not know what to write is a risk that can be mitigated. The blank page can be vanquished. It’s not paralysing contemplating leaping into a new beginning if I plan. For me, a period of preparation and planning is necessary—a space in time where the idea of a beginning can gestate and be refined.
Risk is afraid of the passionate writer who has once broken the spell of ‘I can’t”—the ones whose work you read or listen to and think, ‘Oh my God! You went there? It would have been safer for them not to, but for whatever reason, they did.
The writers who inspire me are the ones who grab the gift of risk by going where they don’t want to go, take the unsafe place and give it back to the World. Risk is our greatest ally and principles and thoughts are only worth the effort of having them when they develop into deeds and original stories.
Thank you, Margaret Kelly, for writing this deeply-perceptive article on being bold and taking risks with our writing.
Following others will, at most, take us to the level of competence which is fine if we are aiming to be a competent writer. But the writers I know and work with want to go further with their writing and achieve mastery-level writing skills and originality. As the late Susan Jeffers advised, let's 'feel and fear and do it anyway.'
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