“On the Sands of Hesitation”

One of my current students in the online course “Transformation: The Protagonist’s Arc” is Evangeline Wilkes. And she posted on the course site one of her poems today which I thought was a great motivator for writers. It’s called ‘On the Sands of Hesitation”:

On the sands of hesitation,

Lay the bones of countless millions,

Who at the dawn of victory

Sat down to wait,

And waiting — died!

This was my comment to her post:

Evangeline, I love that. As writers, we all know the terror of typing FADE IN and facing the ‘monster’ of a blank page. And so we are always faced with that little voice that says, “No. Don’t. Wait.” Your poem points out that way leads to ‘Death.’

It’s like the opposite sentiment of Joseph Campbell’s articulation of the theme of The Hero’s Journey: “Follow your bliss.”

So we’ve got that one for ‘positive’ reinforcement. And yours for ‘negative’ reinforcement. Armed thusly, we are prepared to wage battle with our fears — and our keyboards!

Or as Script Girl says, “You can’t sell it if you don’t write it!”

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