Take The Leap

In September of last year, I won a writing competition. My first writing competition, and if I’m being honest, my dream writing competition. I won the 2015 ELLE Magazine Talent Contest. A competition I never, ever expected to win. A competition I almost didn’t enter at all. 

I can’t tell you the amount of writing competitions I have planned to enter, and the amount of entries I have begun to write, and sometimes even finished completely, for them never to be entered and never to be read. Through fear, through pure ‘talking myself out of’, and for allowing that irritating, evil little voice which says, ‘You won’t win. Why bother and waste your time and effort when you could be doing anything else?’ just a second of my attention. In fact, I haven’t entered many at all, because of only these things, with the list of un-entered, half-finished and abandoned stories a skyscraper, and the list of competitions actually entered, a bungalow in comparison. And the truth is, the piece I wrote for ELLE – my winning entry – was a mere smidge, a pinch, a breath, away from being just another floor at the top of my skyscraper. Wasted time, wasted words, words that would never be read, and a hat-tip to the little voice that thought I couldn’t.

But this time, I took the leap. I’m not sure why, I just did. I’d finished it, and even uploaded the document to an email weeks before, and typed in the comp’s email address... but then I saved it as a draft and shut my laptop lid, thinking feeble, doubtful things like, ‘I’ll see how I feel about it tomorrow’, ‘It’s not very good’, and ‘Something like this wouldn’t win. Maybe I’ll re-read it in a fortnight...’ But a few weeks later, having not given my entry a single look since, I saw a tweet by Writers & Artists, reminding everyone of ELLE magazine’s approaching deadline. It was days away, and I realised I had a finished, polished entry just sitting there. Two days and 16 cups of coffee's worth of work, just sitting in a dark corner of my email account, that would eventually be forgotten. Before I could even think about it, I was logging into my email, taking a breath and pressing send. And I am so, so very happy that I did. 

Taking a leap is something I have always struggled to do, and not just with my writing. What I have wanted to do hasn’t always been mirrored in what I actually do, and it's nothing more than those things – those things that aren’t even true; the fear, the doubt, the voice that should definitely be caught, jarred and pickled – that help me build the skyscraper higher and higher. But 2015 taught me a lesson. It taught me to, yes, be doubtful, be nervous, be apprehensive, be scared, even. But do it anyway, because, really, what’s the worst that could happen? And actually, what’s the best that could happen? Because maybe it will be the best that happens.

While 2015’s writing goals read like a strict to do list (ie: write 3000 words per day even if faced with a fate worse than death, finish novel and maybe another three, take over the world, etc.), in 2016, I have just one: take the leap. Write what you want, even if you think you’re the only one that will want to read it. Just write, joyfully and without fear. Press send. Be read. Be rejected. Be celebrated. Be scared. But regardless, take the leap anyway. 

“You can neither win nor lose if you don’t run the race” – David Bowie

Lia is a mum-of-one, working as a copywriter and studying for a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing. Her first novel, Bubbles, is in the submission process and she is currently writing her second novel. She lives at home, in Hertfordshire, with her boyfriend, three year old, and stacks of clothes and books. Find her on Twitter here.