Crushing the Butterfly

Young writers from Central Christian School's Power of the Pen team. Photo by Denice Rovira Hazlett.Do you know there are enough incredible lifestories out there to make my head hover right on the verge of explosion?

Just today, in fact, I spent several hours, from morning to evening, interviewing amazing people for upcoming articles. 

The most poignant parts of my day? 

The gigantic, joy-filled laugh of a woman talking about finding her life's calling as a certified nurse midwife and nurse practitioner. At age forty-eight. After living two other careers--one as a stock analyst and one as a professional opera singer. 

The live sound engineer who has been developing and using his skills for nearly forty years, not because he ever felt a particular passion for it, but because it fills the needs of the musicians in his community. 

The writer who nervously admitted her biggest fear--that all her other writer peers are better than she is, and that her writing sucks. She's in seventh grade.

I wish I could go around the world collecting stories. Wouldn't that be the bees knees? I wish I could get my hands on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and take off to Milwaukee and Tallahassee and Bakersfield and Baton Rouge in a sweet little Airstream camper, following a trail of tales as I camp my way across the country, chronicling the clever, clever things people do. It would feed both my wanderlust and writing addiction at one fell swoop. But could I do it? Could I do those stories justice?

Bestselling author Ann Patchett writes in her Kindle short, The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life, that the imagining and planning part of the writing process is like a Monarch butterfly fluttering freely around in her mind. The actual writing part of the writing process, then, is like capturing that perfect, flitting creature, crushing it mercilessly in her hands, and pinning down its mangled corpse. 

I worry about this every. single. time. I write. Am I expertly capturing a priceless moment? Or am I mangling a once-beautiful butterfly? My friend Leslie calls it the imposter syndrome. I have it badly. Each time I sit down to write, I realize I have no idea what I'm doing. What if this is the time they find me out, discover me for the imposter I really am? Just like that seventh-grade girl who shared her fears today, I'm pretty certain that all of my writing peers are better than I am. And there's always the very distinct possibility that my writing sucks. 

But I keep at it anyway (which is what I told that seventh-grade girl to do), thanks, in part, to Leslie, who insists there's no other option, but also because it's the only way I know to cope with my relentless writing monkey. 

So, for now, I'll forgo the Canon and the Airstream, Baton Rouge and Bakersfield, and I'll do my best to capture the stories that flitter my way right here in my own corner of the world.

I only pray that I'm able to take what these fine people have trusted me with and not crush the butterfly too badly in the process.