It’s not smudged pencil on the chubby part of your hand.
It isn’t teeth stained from endless cups of coffee and tea.
It doesn’t depend on long hours staring out the rain-washed window of an industrial loft or countryside cottage.
We’ve created a cloud of mystery and intrigue around the writer’s life, made it full of drama, angst, darkened corners and visits from a fickle Muse.
It can be this way, but also, it is often more mundane than this…
Trips through the slush to the office supply store for more printer ink when feels like you were just there a week ago.
It is forcing yourself out of the toasty covers into the cold morning. Click on the coffeepot, the red illumined button the only light in the house except the nightlights in your kids’ bedrooms…and the hallway…and the bathroom.
The blue-light of the computer screen makes you squint until your eyes finally adjust. In a while you’ll be unable to see the child who emerges from the darkness and makes your heart jump. You’re suffering an alternate form of snow-blindness — screen blindness (related to the screen deafness my children experience if I try to talk to them while they’re watching a show).
This slogging through, grinding it out, is what it looks like for me, but inside the tedium are moments of soaring —
a scene that writes itself,
an connection you didn’t see when you first wrote something but now can be developed into something more complete,
a dialog or exchange that rings with truth,
the glorious satisfaction of scratching that writer’s itch that remains at your outside edge until you sit down to write.
No matter what ends up happening with your writing, if you do the hard work of writing – whatever the topic, whatever the genre, whatever the mode of expression — you’re a writer. Write true. Write bravely. Write beauty, even when it’s ugly. The world needs your words, your voice. Enrich our human experience with your perspective. We need one another. We need you.
Linking up today with Lisa-jo Baker (http://lisajobaker.com) and Five Minute Friday.
This is beautiful, and so encouraging, TC. I’m glad I found you. You are right — we need one another. Best wishes to you in your writing journey.
YOU GO GIRL!!!
I love this. I love how encouraging and inspiring this post is for us writers. It’s never an easy job or an easy hobby but it’s one I have loved for two decades now. Thanks for the inspiration and encouragement to write my own post.
I’m so happy you stopped by today and found something positive. I’ll be watching for your post, friend!
thank you for being so encouraging.
It’s funny how despite the differences in the content we’re writing, or the location we’re writing, or even the devices we’re writing on, we all experience that euphoria of the breakthrough. That you euphoria when you know you’ve nailed something.