The Space Between Lines

Every novelist, every artist, knows this space. It's the one between creating, the necessary break. I wrote three novels this past year, along with half of another one. I promised myself that I would rest. that I would take a week to recuperate, to read, to listen.

Holy crap, it's been a long week.

I've never truly understood writer's block, though best-selling writer Ted Dekker suggest that it's base in fear. I'd agree with that. I think most human hesitation is based in fear, and that it's especially true for artists.

We worry about who we may please. Worse, we worry who we may upset. Perhaps its our language (a constant anxiety for me) or our themes or our understanding that a sex scene, however tasteful, is necessary to the story.

We fret and worry and gnaw our fingernails.

And yet, this is so much better than not working. Not writing. Not dreaming.

All dreamers live in a space between lines. Sometimes those lines are family, with their rigid codes of what is acceptable and what isn't. Sometimes those lines are of our own making, be they personal or professional. And sometimes those lines are of our imagination. We expect certain things from others, and when we can't deliver, we deride our own abilities.

Don't do that.

The most important voice in any society is the ones that writes between the lines.

Do your work.

See the lines.

And forget about them.

We need you.