Giving A little Piece of Myself, Or More Advice From Steven Tyler

Yesterday, I was working on an essay/guest entry for Gay YA and struggling a bit with figuring out how to say what I want to say. So, I do what I always do when I'm stuck: I shared what I had with my husband. Now, I thought I was nearly there, but when he finished reading he shook his head.

"You're missing a key piece here," he said.


"I know but I don't know what it is," I told him.

"It's YOU," he said. "You haven't put yourself in here yet. When you write things like this, you always give a little piece of yourself away, but I don't see that here. Sorry."

Then, he disappeared with my son to go practice Karate, leaving me sitting on the couch thinking...

Ugh. I don't know how to do this.

So I asked myself. OK, well, why is this important to you in the first place? I mean at its core. Why does this REALLY matter to YOU? And as soon as I asked that question, the memory of someone I love and miss burned in my heart.

And I knew.

I opened my file, took a deep breath, and gave that piece away.

I showed the essay to my husband again and he said, "Yes. That's what I meant. Sorry you had to go there."

Later that night, my son and I tuned in to American Idol for some sage advice from our man Steven Tyler.

And I'm not kidding, after the very first song, this is what he said:

"Man, every time you sing you bring another little piece of yourself to the party, man, and I love that about you and that was beautiful." - Stephen Tyler

Yep.

It's all about revealing that little piece, isn't it?

I know it can be hard. Seriously. Hard. But isn't that the point of writing in the first place?

Today, I'm thankful to Peter, for being honest and helping me see what work had to be done. And to Steven Tyler, who shares his wonderful quirky self every week.

:-)