Ego

I recently read a very cute children's book titled The Dot. It's about a little girl who can't begin anything in art class. She battles the blank page, and her teacher encourages her to just begin, with anything. The girl leans over and puts a single dot on a page to show her teacher how stupid it will be, but instead her teacher says, "sign it."
The next day her dot is hanging on the wall and the girl thinks, I could make a better dot than that. And this begins a huge creative outpouring of dot art. Eventually she gets her own show and a little boy says to her, "wow, I could never be a great artist like you. I can't even make straight lines. See?" He shows her his crooked lines and she says, "sign it."
Just this last week I realized that it's time for me to stand up and declare my intentions. A year ago I quit my corporate day job to wrestle the demons that haunt me and find work that will flow from my soul. I now feel like I can say that I am a writer and storyteller. I am in the apprenticeship stage. I have a lot to learn and I'm not exactly financially viable yet, but I have found what I love and who I am and I know that my path will involve this work. I can't see the full path, I don't exactly know how I will use these tools in the world, but I feel like it's time to "sign it." It's time to let my ego inflate enough to carry me through the creative process.
I had a lovely ego boost today. I was attending the Small Press Book Fair on the recommendation of my writing teacher. I happened to bump into her while looking at the books for sale by small publishers. She was talking to an editor at a publishing house and when I interrupted to say hello, she turned to the editor and said, "and this young lady is working on a great project where she's telling stories about growing up as a missionary kid." I was quite taken aback, because she's simply read my essay for the anthology and she's been telling me it's an outline for a full-fledged memoir, but I haven't exactly committed to the idea. (though I've been thinking this week I should take it more seriously.) So I said, "well, just beginning the project." And she said, "well it's a darn good beginning!"
I was quite flattered. I know she's my teacher and it's her job to build up her students, but she doesn't suffer fools, she's very frank and honest about feedback. So perhaps I should go further with my memoir writing, even if I do think it would be hard to publish. Maybe I need a little dose of hope and ego.