The Voice That Says, ‘You Can’t’ is Lying

I’ve wanted to write a book since I was a child. As a twelve-year-old in secondary school, the head nun marched into our classroom one day and asked everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up. I didn’t hesitate when I said, ‘a teacher and a part-time writer.’ How she laughed – and how our teacher laughed. I’m still not sure why. Maybe they thought I was too big for my boots. Maybe they felt being a teacher was enough for anyone. Maybe they thought I had notions about myself. In those days, notions were strongly discouraged.

At the age of seventeen, I left home for university and became a teacher, but my writing was hit and miss. I never had the time. Life was too busy. A story here, a poem there. Years passed. I had work, family, commitments. There was always a house to clean, a child or a teenager to be ferried here and there, a committee meeting, a dinner party, always something to keep me from writing. And even when I did get the chance, when I ran out of excuses and sat down in Sister Maire O’Donoughue’s sitting room for one of her lovely half-day writing classes, I still wasn’t sure what my future book might be about.

And it was many years after my second child was born with a rare and debilitating syndrome before I did know. The idea grew from a small seed in my head. After Lauren was born, I was broken-hearted to see the limited and sometimes painful life she endured. And I thought, what if? What if she could escape, even for a while. I imagined her slipping through a membrane into another kinder world, able to live an adventurous life in a parallel universe. I read up on it. In theory, scientists say, we could be living many lives simultaneously in the multiverse. Maybe, in some other dimension, Lauren was having a ball. The thought thrilled me. If this life was a ‘Valley of Tears’ as the Bible told us, it was comforting to know we have other lives to live. And isn’t that what Heaven is – an alternative life of abundance and love?

In August of 2016 or 2017, I attended a writing workshop on Sherkin island’s North Shore just off Baltimore in West Cork. Ideas were fizzing in my head. I wanted to write about the mother of a child who is disengaged from life. And what is going on for the father? I’d need to explore that. And the teenage sister – is she carrying a weight of grief and expectation? Oh, and what of the silent child herself, can I give her a voice? The book, I decided would be fiction – full of hope and humour, along with the drama and despair. I did not want to write a memoir of misery. Thoughts and ideas whizzed in my head, but not a word written yet.

 Many times, I’d told myself, it would never happen. What was I thinking? I was too big for my boots. I had indeed got notions. Where would I even start? It was ridiculous and anyway, I was beyond my own ‘best before’ date, I’d missed the boat. Would I ever learn?

That sunny weekend, looking out onto the Atlantic, I wrote my first page. Well, four pages. But the thing is, I’d started. And when I read a passage to the others in the group, nobody laughed. They nodded and said, yes, Eleanor, you’ve captured the voice of that child. And I knew, then, that I had to finish this book and that it was going to be like climbing a mountain. But I would finish it. I would tell the story of this family because it was my story to tell.

I couldn’t count the times I nearly gave up. The times I felt that I just wasn’t good enough. The times I walked away in frustration and disappointment. Disappointment in myself. And the voice in my head telling me, why bother? It’s going nowhere. You’re going nowhere.

But that voice was lying through its false teeth. I did finish my book. I finished a second book. I published both, launched them both. I received very favourable reviews, emails, readers who told me they laughed, cried, loved the story. Readers who said the books inspired them. I did interviews, readings, signings. Just as well I refused to listen to that whispering voice of doubt in my head. Because, if I had, there would be no author-Eleanor, no stories told, no book-mountain climbed. I might have taken up golf or knitting or bridge. But I’m so glad I persisted. Because I found, inside myself, a new person, a new courage and a new strength of purpose. I found tremendous satisfaction and joy in the whole process. And kindness – I found kindness, encouragement, new friends and such fun on my writing journey.

So, don’t listen to the voice that’s lying through its teeth. The thing is, it doesn’t actually know. It’s a tape spooling in your head on a loop. Same message on repeat. It doesn’t know that you’re driving the bus and you’re actually the one that does know. So, keep on writing. Or dreaming about running a marathon or going for that goal, or getting fit, or mastering something, or starting that thing you always wanted to start. Don’t give up on yourself. If you find self-doubt creeping in, come back to this post. Read these words. And then crack on. If I can do it, you can do it.

Mary Oliver the poet asks us in her beautiful poem, Summer Day: 

‘And what will you do with your one wild and precious life?’ 

Each one of us has to answer for ourselves but one piece of advice from me: Ignore the voice that says you can’t because when you really want it, you can, actually.