The Crooked Truth

Anika’s Crooked Truth: Writing with Heart

As a child, I always felt a little like an outsider.

I wasn’t a total introvert. I played a sport. I was in the drama club. Mine was a subtler feeling of not fitting in, which had to do with being biracial, having divorced parents and splitting my time between two families.

I've grown up now, and accomplished things. I'm a mom and a published picture book author. And yet I sometimes feel like that girl again. In certain situations, social and professional, she's there, full of awkwardness and self-doubt and feelings of not being “right” for anything.

Recently, at Whispering Pines Writers Retreat, novelist Lynda Mullaly Hunt talked about having the courage to put your heart on the page, and how it was the scariest part of publishing her first book—the idea that pieces of her would be laid bare for the world to read.

During the first pages exercise, when the first page of my middle grade novel was read aloud, one of the mentors said, “Reading this, I feel like I’m in very capable hands.” It was a positive comment; a perfectly respectable and encouraging bit of feedback. Far better than, “Wow, this is really a mess!”

But I realized something. I’d been writing safe. Capable, but safe. Something (fear probably) has held me back from taking a risk, and putting my heart on the page.

When I returned, I began a story about a biracial girl who feels like an outsider. It scares me a little. But it also feels like coming home. I hope I have the heart—and the guts—to finish it.

-Anika