On this spring’s writing retreat, one of my mentors and hosts brought several polished stones and laid them face down on a cloth. She then passed the cloth around the room, instructing us to choose the one we felt most drawn to.
I stared at them all for what seemed like an absurdly long time. I was drawn to the largest stone, and it was one of my favorite colors—a deep dark blue—like the ocean outside my hotel window.
But something inside me balked. “No, not that one. Pick a smaller, more subtle one.”
So I did. It was the same color but about half the size. When I turned it over, I felt a flush of disappointment. In engraved gold letters, my stone said, inspire. Inspiration isn’t for yourself, it’s for others. I’d made the wrong choice.
After the cloth laden with stones made its way around, it turned out that none of us had picked the large stone. My mentor quipped how interesting it was that none of us had picked it, as it was the only one labeled “success.”
A murmur rolled through our little group. To all of us, but me in particular, it was curious that none of us had picked the rock of success. Were we all, somewhere deep inside, avoiding success?
That couldn’t be true. We were all writing, submitting critiques, getting published (one way or another). But the thought weighed on me. Not just that weekend, but every time I looked at my inspire rock. How was I going to accomplish my dreams of sharing my stories with the world that way? Was I really afraid of success?
I know I’ve lived with an unhealthy fear of failure my whole life. The fear was so strong it prevented me from taking any risk that I could truly fail at. Apparently the two fears were cousins, and I’d gleefully taken them with me through almost every part of my writing life.
Recently I received an acceptance email for one of my short (micro flash) stories. In the email, the editors stated that my piece had “inspired them” to hold a special submission call for a replanted fairytales collection (outside of their usual publication schedule) and that my story would be featured there if I accepted. The caveat being that my story wouldn’t be published until late fall, early winter, and it’s currently the middle of summer.
I agreed.
As I was digesting all this, my thoughts wandered to the inspire stone, and after reading their email for the third time, I decided that maybe I’d picked the right one after all.
