Sidney Lovett 
wrote, "Every now and again take a good look at something not made with hands--a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream. There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace and, above all, the assurance that you are not alone in the world." There have been times in my life I was so filled with self-doubt that my writing life had no air to breathe. There were many times when I doubted my talent and how I view the world. It is easier to doubt than it is to achieve. Believing in yourself is difficult.
There have always been people in my life to guide me closer to a place of self-discovery and away from a path of self-discovery. Ultimately the choice of my path is mine. Others can guide me only if I let them. If I remain teachable then teachers appear. If I remain closed off and isolated then I attract people who don't want me to learn and self-discover.
When I think my writing life is over and I feel desperate due to the loss of self a teacher always appears. It is only through being as desperate to write, as the dying can be that I finally muster the courage to sit at the empty screen and write. My writing is a reflection of feelings and experiences that flow like music from my mind. There are so many times my fingers can't keep up with the flow of words that stream in thought.
When the courage to write finally comes my attitude about life changes; I know that it would have been easier to give up and not write at all, but I also know that that is a lie. To give up who you are out of fear and misguided direction is not easier. It is suffering. I do not have to suffer today because I can have the courage to write who I am.
My writing encourages me to be honest with myself first and with others second. I have the courage to write what I am afraid to say aloud. The more I write the more I feel and the more I feel the more I am honest and unafraid. Deep down within every non-writer is a writer wanting to be released. A writer that pushes at us from the inside out poking us to find peace, direction, happiness and to become the writer we were meant to be. Writing in a writer’s life is discovering wholeness. Not writing in a writer’s life is to remain fragmented.
As writers we are isolated not only physically from a world that buzzes around us outside of closed doors, but we are isolated in our minds. We view the world in minute details others overlook. We see and feel the slightest changes in breeze, in motion, in sound. We feel like no other human does. We seek the small while the world is focused on the huge.
In the world I feel far away. I have to listen carefully to the world in order to be a part of her. I have to listen for the words of my teacher who can be anywhere at any time in my day. I seek wisdom where others see none. I hear doors open where others hear nothing. I never know where my newest story, idea, sentence or word will come from, but I must always be open to receive the message.
I sit in my empty apartment quiet listening to the traffic roll by; I hear the breathing of my cats, the bubbling of the water in my goldfish tank. I feel the presence of life around me because I sit still long enough to feel life. A writer who writes is right sized. A non-writer who isn’t writing is wrong-sized. Nature is a place for writers to go to understand the gift they have been given. To feel one amongst grains of sand at the ocean, to feel the thunderous power of waves crashing and to witness the stars lighting up a blackened sky is to become right sized. It is only then that I can embrace my gift of writing expressively what I think, feel and experience. It is only when I am right sized that I am truly alive and writing.
wrote, "Every now and again take a good look at something not made with hands--a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream. There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace and, above all, the assurance that you are not alone in the world." There have been times in my life I was so filled with self-doubt that my writing life had no air to breathe. There were many times when I doubted my talent and how I view the world. It is easier to doubt than it is to achieve. Believing in yourself is difficult.There have always been people in my life to guide me closer to a place of self-discovery and away from a path of self-discovery. Ultimately the choice of my path is mine. Others can guide me only if I let them. If I remain teachable then teachers appear. If I remain closed off and isolated then I attract people who don't want me to learn and self-discover.
When I think my writing life is over and I feel desperate due to the loss of self a teacher always appears. It is only through being as desperate to write, as the dying can be that I finally muster the courage to sit at the empty screen and write. My writing is a reflection of feelings and experiences that flow like music from my mind. There are so many times my fingers can't keep up with the flow of words that stream in thought.
When the courage to write finally comes my attitude about life changes; I know that it would have been easier to give up and not write at all, but I also know that that is a lie. To give up who you are out of fear and misguided direction is not easier. It is suffering. I do not have to suffer today because I can have the courage to write who I am.
My writing encourages me to be honest with myself first and with others second. I have the courage to write what I am afraid to say aloud. The more I write the more I feel and the more I feel the more I am honest and unafraid. Deep down within every non-writer is a writer wanting to be released. A writer that pushes at us from the inside out poking us to find peace, direction, happiness and to become the writer we were meant to be. Writing in a writer’s life is discovering wholeness. Not writing in a writer’s life is to remain fragmented.
As writers we are isolated not only physically from a world that buzzes around us outside of closed doors, but we are isolated in our minds. We view the world in minute details others overlook. We see and feel the slightest changes in breeze, in motion, in sound. We feel like no other human does. We seek the small while the world is focused on the huge.
In the world I feel far away. I have to listen carefully to the world in order to be a part of her. I have to listen for the words of my teacher who can be anywhere at any time in my day. I seek wisdom where others see none. I hear doors open where others hear nothing. I never know where my newest story, idea, sentence or word will come from, but I must always be open to receive the message.
I sit in my empty apartment quiet listening to the traffic roll by; I hear the breathing of my cats, the bubbling of the water in my goldfish tank. I feel the presence of life around me because I sit still long enough to feel life. A writer who writes is right sized. A non-writer who isn’t writing is wrong-sized. Nature is a place for writers to go to understand the gift they have been given. To feel one amongst grains of sand at the ocean, to feel the thunderous power of waves crashing and to witness the stars lighting up a blackened sky is to become right sized. It is only then that I can embrace my gift of writing expressively what I think, feel and experience. It is only when I am right sized that I am truly alive and writing.
Writers are first and foremost, excellent observers and thought-organizers. They (we) have the innate ability to visualize the ending to the story before we write it.
ReplyDeleteAs very sensory beings, writers must also, however, deliberately engage with the world to benefit from the life that abounds as a part of it...
Especially for writers, it is critically important to remember not to be living life looking in the rear-view mirror.
Writing is the fusion of observation and imagination.
I totally agree--we can not write what we do not experience in the moment. Thanks for your comment :) Tammy
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