Out of the Shadows

When an artist draws an image on a blank canvas, she is interested in the negative space – the shadow – as much the positive space – the object. Negative space gives objects definition and depth and dimension. More importantly, in an image composed of many objects, shadows allow the eye to differentiate between one flower and another, to understand where the sky ends and the horizon begins. For many years I spent much of my time fixated on negative space, which in my life of romance and writing was called rejection – rejection from prospective partners and rejection from publishers. It was immensely confusing and uncomfortable. I could feel every “no” before it came. Sometimes, I wondered: if I were a better person, a better writer, would the no’s become yes’s? It was an impossible question, because I didn’t know how to be a better person, nor, in truth, a better writer. Some days I seemed to write brilliantly; the next, it was if I’d forgotten the English language.

Then one day I met a girl who seemed different to me than other girls I had met. I had no apprehension the first time I asked her out, because I knew she wouldn’t – no, couldn’t – reject me. She couldn’t, because she was interesting to me for reasons beyond gaining the approval of a yes. She was interesting to me the way a song I heard on the radio started me dancing, the way a joke made me laugh, the way a story excited my imagination. I was only seventeen, but I had stepped out of the shadows, and the difference was unmistakable.

I would be much, much older before I learned to apply this way of living to writing. I continued to fear rejection the way I feared death. Rejection, for me as a writer, seemed like death: an end with no more beginnings. I was not surprised that the first time I chose to tell a story only because it was interesting to me and not because I hoped it would be accepted, that I had the same feeling as I did the first time I asked out that girl who is now my wife. I was just surprised at how long it took me to step into that creative light. I knew, as surely as I knew I would now seek it every time I sat at my desk, that it had been shining and shining all those years, waiting for nothing but my acceptance.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual and group coaching.