What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?
I’ve known since the age of four years old that I was meant to be a writer. When
my brother and I were much younger, we both loved to listen to our mother read to us.
Eventually I told her that I wanted to start telling my own stories. She would
write down what I said, and I would get very upset when she wouldn’t put the
right words on the page. Later on, our mother would create “books” for me by
stapling together a few sheets of typing paper, and I would begin writing my
thoughts and stories down. (Yes, this was long before the age of personal
computers, and it wasn’t until high school that I would take typing classes,
which to this day I have never once regretted doing.)
The thing that was so unusual about my writing, especially according to
my parents, was that the punctuation and spelling were perfect. No one knew how
I was doing this at such a young age, and it was a strong indicator that
despite my facial paralysis, I wasn’t at all intellectually impaired, despite
what doctors had told my parents several years earlier. My uncanny facility with
language led to me being placed in the talented and gifted program at school,
which is one of the few places I thrived in for quite some time.
The thing is, I’d dealt with a lot of people underestimating me, especially
during my younger years. This impacted how I saw myself, of course, but worse
than that, it meant that I couldn’t trust my own voice. Even though I had the
support of teachers and others who could see my potential as a writer, it took
me many years to realize that I had something of value to say. Thankfully, in
the past few years through a number of different circumstances, I realized that
I wasn’t living the life I most wanted and began to write again. My blog in
particular is an ongoing project that is meant to be the centerpiece of a
number of activities including acting, singing, public speaking, and of course
the writing itself.
Writing is its own act of defiance and helps me face my fear of failure. Each day I
sit down to write is a day of repudiating that fear and making sure I don’t
give in to doubt or insecurity. Some days I may simply not know what to write.
On other days, several projects may clamor for my attention all at once. Sometimes
I’ll go onto Quora, a website where people pose questions and get answers to
them, and jot down my own responses to various inquiries. The point is to keep
writing and eventually find my own voice, regardless of what my insecurities
might be trying to tell me.
Freedman on the Go 
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