You can’t hide forever from the thunder;
Look into the storm and feel the rain.

~Josh Groban, “Brave“

I recently said goodbye to a comfortable job editing and proofreading at the United Nations to follow my dreams: To Write. To spend the best hours of my day working on my material and my message to the world. I’m incredibly fortunate to have the support of a loving husband, which makes this path easier than it is for most.

But that doesn’t make it easy. The fantasy of writing is a pervasive and powerful one, one which we all know: Feverishly write a book—how hard can it be, writing down something that exists in your head? Then release it onto the world, and overnight the miraculous happens. Launch parties. Signings. Bestseller lists. Perhaps even a movie?

It’s just more fantasies. Sure, those end results happen for a lucky few, but the process of getting there is as far from the artistic ideal as you can get. Inspiration bursts happen, but they are few and far between. You can’t become an author by relying on The Muse (but you certainly learn to appreciate creative surges when they do come). Those are the gifts. Much of the time, word-craft is a tedious business, plagued with doubt and despair. Our stories aren’t interesting enough. Our characters aren’t believable enough. We are not good enough.

Being an artist is a strange thing: it requires a thick hyde for the inevitable criticism that will come your way because you can’t please everybody, and yet, the process of writing, of painting, of dancing requires that you put your whole being on display or else the performance rings false. You can no longer push down emotions because your craft demands that they live on the surface so that you may access true feeling when your art demands it. You make yourself open and vulnerable to that criticism, voluntarily. Openly. Willingly. All because you have this compulsion to create that which burns inside.

It’s a scary journey, this path to first publication. Battling both the inner and outer demons is exhausting; they’re both saying you can’t do it, you don’t have what it takes, you’re living in a fantasy world. Add to that the incredible vulnerability that comes with baring your soul, and it’s a wonder that anyone makes it past these formative beginning stages to actually become a professional artist.

Whenever I need a boost of empowerment, I play the above-quoted song and sing along with Josh Groban at the top of my lungs, dancing and jumping about the room. I let go of everything else and live only in the music. We all need getaway places like this—not physical places to escape, to run and hide, but music and friends and hobbies that lift you up and give you the strength to silence those fears, persevere in spite of them. For all my worries that—no matter how hard I work—maybe I just won’t be good enough, I wake up every morning eager to write. I get to live inside my imagination all day long. I’m working far longer hours than I ever have, am more focused on one thing than I’ve ever been, and there still isn’t enough time to keep up with the creative fervor. For this moment, I’m living and fully embracing the self within, and it’s glorious.

I would love it if you would share in this journey with me.