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When it comes to “letting go,” I’m simply awful at it. It’s never been easy for me to let go of anything or anyone, despite a desperate need to do so. It’s a scary place to be in, until you’re realizing you’re doing it and can take the appropriate steps to get better at it.

Not every WIP (Work in Progress) is a worthwhile venture. I have uncompleted novels at around 25,000 words that sit on my hard drive and are never revisited. I won’t let go of these works, because they may re-inspire me later on down the road. When it comes to writing, it’s best that I don’t let go. Letting go would mean giving up on a project and there’s no deadline for what I write for myself.

But, letting go in real life is a real problem for me, especially when it comes to people. One thing I’m slow to admit to people is the deep anxiety I have about all things social. My brain constantly makes me relive dialogs all the time. This is great for my writing, because I can mentally store the things people said or I said, that I liked, and sprinkle it into my work. But, it also means I spend a lot of time questioning myself and beating myself up.

For years, my mother in law would shake her head at me and insist that I was a doormat. Me? I come across as really outgoing and assertive and I am, in many ways. I’d never stand for a good number of things, but hardly any of those things truly have anything to do with me. In a way, I just let people treat me poorly. For instance, I had a friend for a long time that was jealous of me and would drink and pitch a fit at me. After her out of control ranting – to my face – she would apologize via a text message. There was no letting go. It never even crossed my mind. There were excuses I made to myself about her. It’s rare that I open up to people, so if I make a friend, I’m afraid to let go…to be alone.

In the end, she distanced herself from me and that hurt, but I was okay. It opened the door for me to understand that not every person who comes into my life has a positive reason for being there. Letting go is difficult, but necessary. This lesson really shines through in my writing. There is a bit of myself in my main characters. I lead with an insecure female who finds inner strength and succeeds, despite a great deal of villains standing in her way. As I grow as a person, so do the women I write about.

I have two current works in progresses – one a historical romance surrounding Edgar Allan Poe (fiction) and another that’s a fiction based on my personal experiences. In the latter novel, my main character is troubled and alone. It’s an honest depiction of some of the hardships that my family has experienced and a made up account at the same time. It’s the most honest thing I’ve ever written and it took letting go to make it happen. There are people who need to be let go. It’s unfortunate and sad and hard to deal with, but a part of life. I don’t know if I’ll ever be totally comfortable with it, but at least my difficulty shines through in my writing and creates an interesting world for my characters to live in.