Writing is Taking Risks: Guest Post by Leesa Freeman

Lessa Freeman and I share several things in common: we are misplaced Texans and lovers of Dr. Pepper (though it’s off the menu for both of us…pure torture), and we both have a fire to write. Today, Leesa talks about her journey to publication–about finding courage. As a bonus, she’s giving away an autographed copy of her novel, THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. Just drop your name in the comments. It’s that easy.

Take the Risk to Blossom

Leesa Freeman

Writing saved my life.

Yes, I realize that’s a rather audacious statement, but follow me on this for a moment. Before I discovered I’m a writer, I kind of drifted, lost. I thought it would be “really cool” to write a book, but more or less in the same way I thought it would be “really cool” to learn to play the guitar or scale Mt. Everest or go skydiving. (Have I mentioned I’m desperately afraid of heights?) But I kept myself from doing it with all the usual excuses: I don’t have time, what the heck do you talk about for 200 pages, and who would give a rat’s hat what I have to say, anyway?

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~ Anaïs Nin

Several years ago I had a dream that I couldn’t quite get out of my head, and I sat down at my computer with equal parts curiosity and desperation. In my dream, a girl was in a hospital waiting room waiting for her friend to get out of surgery so she could tell him for the first time she loved him. It was surreal, it was vivid, and I had to know why she hadn’t told him before.

And so I began writing just for me. Just to move on. Once I was done with this piddly little short story, it was gonna go somewhere on my hard drive and that would be that, right?

Wrong.

The more I wrote, the more I had to write, until I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t wait to get home when I was out, and was generally obsessed with this whole thing. And somewhere in that process, I became a writer.

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” ~ Anaïs Nin

There’s something magical in discovering what you are truly good at. Not that I knew everything when I began, not that I know everything now, but that moment when you not only realize not only have you found your gift, but you have the courage to embrace it, call it forth, and make it your own is an Angels-singing-on-high feeling.

And that’s what saved my life, because I was able to see myself differently. I was able to become who I’d always wanted to be, but was too afraid of rejection, or being vulnerable, or whatever crazy excuse I’d come up with that really boiled down to one thing: if I didn’t try, I couldn’t fail.

Once I realized I couldn’t fail because I had already succeeded, it became easier to take on all the other challenges I had rejected out of fear. I found the courage to embrace the things that had previously scared me. Since then, not only have I published my first book, THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE, I’ve written a second for which I’m currently looking for an agent, and I’m working on a third. That in and of itself is huge, but as I write this, I’ve also lost almost 100 pounds – I couldn’t keep becoming Who I’m Meant to Be while feeling bad about who I was.

“If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because our culture has no use for it.” ~ Anaïs Nin

Writing is, for me, therapy. Through it I have spent hours at my computer opening my heart and my emotions, trying to immerse myself into my character’s lives to tell their stories as fully and deeply as I possibly can, and it has been those moments of laughing with them, crying with them, and rejoicing in them that has given me myself.

Maybe writing didn’t save my life in the “traditional” sense.  You could argue that I wasn’t technically dying, and I would agree with you. I wasn’t. But I would also argue that without embracing the gifts we are each given and finding the courage to use them unapologetically are we really living?

“Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.” ~ Anais Nin

~

A native Texan, Leesa Freeman enjoys escaping the chill of New England, if only in her imagination, often setting her stories in the places she loved growing up. Some of her favorite moments are the ones where it’s just her, her Mac, and simply conversing with the people who live inside her head, and sharing their lives with those who take the time to read her stories. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and two daughters, where she is also an artist, avid baker, a self-proclaimed music snob, and recovering Dr. Pepper addict. Visit her website and follow her on Facebook.

About the book:

Todd Randall spent his life pushing the limits: stealing a pack of cigarettes and a beer and coming home smelling like tobacco and cheap bear; “borrowing” his father’s car, usually to pick up girls; snorting lines of OxyContin after a knee injury on the football field, eventually landing in rehab at the age of seventeen. Now he works in his uncle’s auto body shop, struggling to stay clean, and refusing to get close to anyone because he fears he is unfit for human consumption. When he meets Shawn Clifton, for the first time begins to see himself differently, and even though it scares the hell out of him, he feels compelled to reach for the life she offers.

THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE is the story of one man’s desire to accept his mistakes, find the courage to allow himself to truly love, and finally become the person he so wants to be. Read an excerpt HERE.

Drop your name in the comments for a chance to win a copy of THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE or purchase your own copy on Amazon. Random.org will choose the winner of Leesa’s autographed copy on Tuesday, November 12th.