Which Voice? (Part 2!) by Georgie Tennant

The Negative Inner Monologue is a familiar a concept for too many of us writers – it can be so easy to let it sweep us away, paralyse us into inaction, stop us in our tracks.  When I wrote and scheduled this post, earlier in the week, I had no idea that Liz Carter was going to write about exactly the same thing on Thursday, with almost exactly the same title (great minds and all that).  Pushing panic aside, I decided that it is a topic of such importance that we perhaps need to read about it twice in three days.

So yes – the Negative Inner Monologue…my take on Liz’s “destructive voices…that frustrate, befuddle and terrorise.” Here is how mine has sounded most recently (always – always – in a serpent-tongued, accusatory tone):

“Why do you think there is any point in you even trying to write at the moment? You don’t have the time or energy.  If you were a half decent Mum and wife, your house wouldn’t look like this.  You can’t even keep up with the basics of life - why do you dare to hope that writing might be something you can actually do, right now?  Ha!  I don’t think so!

You don’t have a single idea for your next blog post, never mind a long-term project.  Call yourself a writer?! Look at all those other people out there, writing every day, signing contracts for novels, getting poetry published – and then there is you!  No vision, no energy, no hope.  Give up!  Stop inflicting your half-baked ideas on people and leave it to the ones who can actually write!

You think you do have ideas, huh?  Other people have got there first, done them faster, done them better – no room for your little echo of a voice!  Never mind if it’s a passion – if it’s been done already, you might as well forget it.  No room in such a small market for unoriginal thought.

That friend you sent your article to the other day, who never read it, who didn’t reply?  Your fears that it was because they weren’t interested, didn’t care?  Well you’re right.  Next time, don’t bother.  The post you shared that hardly got any views?  Everyone knows what you write isn’t worth reading.  Keep it to yourself next time - isolate yourself, lay low.  You avoid disappointment that way, right?’

And so it continues.  But.  There is another voice, a gentler one, a wiser, life-giving one and one I pray we will all get better at hearing: the voice of the One who calls us and equips us (Hebrews 13 v 21) and will finish what he started in us (Philippians 1 v 6).  I am learning what it is to combat this other voice, to stand firm against it, to push back the wall of lies it ushers in.

 My retaliation takes the form of a prayer that goes something like this:

“Thank you, that when I feel like I’m failing, you do not see me as a failure. Thank you that when I am striving for perfection, you are more than aware of my limitations and don’t expect the perfection I demand from myself. 

Thank you that, when I feel exhausted and unable to summon the energy to keep writing, you remind me that the battle is yours, that you have called and equipped me and that you will enable me to rise on wings like eagles.

Thank you that, when I am feeling empty and hopeless, you are the author of life and hope.  Thank you that, when I have no more words to express the darkness inside of me, that you have words that can dispel that very darkness; you are the word that has dispelled all darkness forever.  And you can use my humble offering of words to dispel the darkness others are facing too.

Thank you that, when I feel alone, you are closer than I know. When I feel misunderstood, you know the secret pains and longings of my heart, and, when I feel I can’t go on, you take my hand, lift my head and convince me to write one more word and then one more, until I’m up and at it again. 

Thank you. Thank you that you never give up on me. Thank you that you are for me. Thank you that you are the lifter of my head. I will keep trusting you. I will keep giving my writing back to you. I will keep trusting that you are working everything out for good, even in this valley, where I can’t see or feel that truth. Amen.”

  

There are two songs I am finding especially helpful, at the moment, that help nudge me back on track when I listen more to the first monologue and forget to engage in the second.  One is ‘Tell Me,’ by Carrollton, which reminds me of so many of the truths I so easily forget.  The second is ‘The Voice of Truth,’ by ‘Casting Crowns,’ – the refrain of the chorus is one I pray we will all learn to heed, today, as we write (or don’t write!) walking on, with our heads held high: “Out of all the voices calling out to me, I will choose to listen and believe the voice of truth.”  

Georgie Tennant is a secondary school English teacher in a Norfolk Comprehensive.  She is married, with two sons, aged 10 and 8, who keep her exceptionally busy. She writes for the ACW ‘Christian Writer’ magazine occasionally, and is a contributor to the ACW-Published ‘New Life: Reflections for Lent,’ and ‘Merry Christmas, Everyone: A festive feast of stories, poems and reflections.’ She writes the ‘Thought for the Week’ for the local newspaper from time to time and also muses about life and loss on her blog: www.somepoemsbygeorgie.blogspot.co.uk