♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦
Topic #247
What would be the hardest thing for you to give up?
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Leaving would be the hardest part for me. Whether it is in life or in my writing, walking away from something is always difficult. I’m a fighter. I don’t give up easy. Sometimes I wish that I could leave. Mostly, I just wish I had a better gauge of when enough is enough.
Do you ever feel awkward trying to end a conversation, or take your leave of someone? The nervous and timing, as well as what do you so gets easily jumbled. I can’t tell if it’s my introversion, or anxiety. Something makes me feel funny about it. Then, I feel like people get this idea I am weird because of it. It’s a terrible conundrum.
Leaving at the right time isn’t unique to my writing, as I said. Walking away from people and situations is hard. I care deeply for those who are my friends and family. I believe in people in general, and they can find my general good human expectations upsetting. The faith I have in other humans to ultimately be good have lead me to hang around far longer than I should.
A few years ago, thanks to social media, I began to learn how to walk away. It’s still not easy. We’re taught to give people the benefit of the doubt and to be kind. That lesson is generally a good one, but there are people who take advantage of it in order to work their scam on others. This doesn’t mention the fact that some folks will just not get along, so at odds.
I practice the ideology of live and let live, but I’m not push over. My preference, and one I work hard to maintain, is to keep negative and damaging individuals at a fair distance. They are welcome to do as they please outside my vicinity. This said, I do not abide abusive behavior so long as it doesn’t touch me and mine. I will intervene against those who do harm to others.
And, I am patient.
Like I said: leaving is the hardest part. There are just those times when you feel a duty to stick around and keep watch. Being the one who knew something and didn’t disclose it before another got hurt is not something I can do. If I can be of help, I am there.
So, too, with writing. When I first started, my gauge on what constituted enough description was a bit broken. I wanted to depict everything. What a slog! If feedback didn’t intervene, and my good sense to listen, I can’t imagine where I’d be right now. But, that said, it was hard. Hearing those criticisms over material I was so excited to have created truly hurt. I thought I was being diligent and accurate. That’s true, but well-crafted writing is precise without wordiness. What I had to learn were better, economical ways to say things, and then to understand that not every piece of furniture in the room had to be set up, so to speak.
If you can get yourself to listen to the criticism, you just might find what you need to put you over the top. How do you leave the stuff you don’t need though? Yeah, I know about that, too. How many of us find our minds focusing way too hard on some comment left, and unable to shake the anger? A lot of us do. What you need to do, although it isn’t easy, is to determine if the comment is useful to you. If it doesn’t help you improve, move on.
We all live and learn.
Learning takes time. Exhibiting the grace of a perfect exit is just as learned as the skill of writing. Embrace your awkwardness and learn more about it. Then, leaving won’t feel so uncomfortable. Grow into your convictions and gather a sense of what works well for you.
You should never be afraid to leave a situation that isn’t serving you or those you care about. But, I’m no authority. I still struggle with it, too!
Hop on over to see what the other writers find hard to give up by clicking on their links below…
