Writing

If you want to be a writer, you write. You can read magazines, attend conferences, workshop your stories, etc., but you write.

I mention this because I was talking to a writer(?) who didn't understand – or didn’t believe – she had to write to actually claim that title. In fact, writing was secondary to her plans. She blogged, she FBed, she workshopped, she went to conferences, she read writing books, she did everything the magazines say a writer should. All of which can be helpful. And if those things are all she wants, it’s her life. She can live as she chooses and be happy, but it isn't writing.

I don't know of any way to be a writer other than to write. And if you want to be a published writer, you have to finish what you write. Then you write some more.

And you have to let your baby go. You have to release it, either to agents or self-publishing or your files, but after you've written it as best as you can, you have to let it go and move on. No, it isn't easy. It's easier to fiddle with it forever, but you must move on eventually.

You have more than one story in you. Yes, you didn't write that first story the exact way you wanted to. It's not perfect. But it won't ever be perfect. If it is, then you did something wrong.

The whole point of being an artist of any type is to continue to strive. If we reach our goal, we have to raise our goal.

It's frustrating, heart-breaking, exhausting, but it's also exhilarating, fascinating, fulfilling. That striving makes us human. Actually more than human. The ape reaching for the hand of an angel.

And that’s how I see writing.