For Everything Writing is Worth

Right now, it is 8:37 pm on a Sunday night. I'm sitting in my green leather La-Z-Boy recliner. I have taken naps in this bad boy, watched a lot of movies, read a lot of books, written my fair share of stories too (no fun when it's 90 degrees outside let me tell you!). I'm listening to some music as I write this, a Dance/DJ artist called 009 Sound System. I wouldn't call it great, but it's definitely catchy and listenable. I dug for this music, so I dig it just out of pride of having found it.

Anyway, I know where I am and what I'm doing. Where are you? Are you sitting in your favorite chair? Perhaps couch? Are you in your study (if you have one)? Are you at work? Is where you are your preferable spot while reading something? Everyone has a comfortable place where they sit, lay down, or relax to read something. It's not much different than that favorite spot on the couch when you flick on the tube.

So, by the time you read this. I will have left my Sociology class for the day. It will be into the future. But right now, as you read this, you are with me. Even as my physical self is out and about doing whatever (probably going to Taco Bell). We are having a meeting of the minds with the words I have typed and then posting them on this blog for you to read. I'm reaching into the future just as you are going back in time to meet me.

Let me bring this a little further home. Picture a long room, there are paintings and candles mounted on the wooden walls. Within the center of the room is a long rectangular table with a glass bulb sitting in the middle. Within this glass bulb is a white owl with bright amber eyes. One the back of this white owl is the number ten in blue. You see the number?

Writing is quite a bit more special than people are willing to give it credit for. Those who take it seriously will say writing is hard work, and it is, don't think for a second it isn't. But what else is writing? As I download the words from my head to my moving fingers, you are receiving raw information from my own brain.

Writing is telepathy. What else can it be? Of course, it's not super hero style where I can send and receive information from other people's minds. But you are certainly getting a direct shot of information coming from my head. Take the owl in the glass orb. What does the glass bulb look like? Is it oval shaped? Is it circular? Is it large or small? Does it matter? No, the point is you noticed the number ten on the back of the owl. I'm painting a picture in your head, not writing an instruction manual. I didn't describe the exact dimensions of the room, or described the style of frames on the paintings, the type of wood made from the table, or even how big or small the owl was.

Writing is a gift to all that can do it well. Writing is difficult to accomplish. Writing is difficult to understand and comprehend. Creative writing cannot be taught. One could be given the tools to start, but it is up to the person to write and get better. How does one do that? Read, read, read, read, read, and then write, write, write. Reading should be the center focus of which you base all your writing around. Without reading, writing is pointless, without reading, one can never understand how to wow a reader, to shock a reader, to make a reader laugh, or cry, or pull the book closer to themselves in obsessive interest. If a writer has never had any of these things happen them, they will never be able to replicate the patterns in their own work.

Of course, I could sit here and tell you about it until my fingers are about to fall off. But what it really comes down to is simply doing it. Writers are usually introverted people, and sometimes as introverts, we dump the things going on in our heads unto others. Blurting all that creative whirlwind going inside until the storm subsides. The more time a writer spends talking about it, the less time they spend actually doing it. I find when I delve my thoughts aloud to another on what I plan to write I feel as if I just destroyed what I had going. What is going on in my head is precious. I don't dear whisper it, because it is so fragile, that to whisper would destroy it. Bottle that ambition, that constant need or want to talk about it into wanting to do it instead. There are two types of writers: those who talk about writing, and then those who actually spend time doing it.

So as we embrace the final full week of #writemotivation month; what kind of writer are you? Do you find yourself putting up excuses to not get to that writing? Or are you making a point of taking the effort required to sit down and actually write? It's a simple thing really. Even if a writer is to sit down say, an hour a day, and write something, and then repeat that cycle. It becomes a habit, it will be something you wouldn't even think about. Because if you don't do it, it feels as if you missed something, like not brushing your teeth.

So, my dear reader, I challenge you. For the final week of #writemotivation. Sit down for at least an hour, write something, anything. It doesn't matter what it is. Stick to it, even if the writing is crap. Write until that hour is up, and when you are finished, repeat the process tomorrow, same time, same place. Do this for a week. If you complete the week, go for another. Keep going until writing becomes so ingrained in your daily routine you don't even think about writing, you just acknowledge that writing is something that is going to be done. Like taking a shower, letting the dog out before bed, making sure all the lights are off before leaving home in the morning. Make writing something you do rather than talk about. Who knows, you might find yourself looking forward to that hour.

#Writemotivation to all!

J.G.A.