Dear Writers,
I am so fed up of self-rightious writers shouting at anyone who ever expressed the most vague of interests in writing. ‘Unless you can’t PHYSICALLY stop yourself, unless you don’t wake up sweating and screaming in the middle of the night because you have to finish a page, unless you haven’t been sectioned for wildly flailing around your garden for the sheer ORGASMIC EXSTACY that writing brings you, DON’T DO IT.’
Who the hell do you think you are, people?
I understand the concept. If you do get something published there will come a time when you will have contracts and deadlines placed upon you, that will be much easier if you enjoy your craft. But this is the same as with any job.
Writing is not some divine right or duty, it is for everyone.
Write, or don’t write. That’s it. That’s literally all there is.
Sometimes, writing is a bitch. It can be hard, it can make you worry - ‘Am I expressing what I want to express? Is x in character?’ Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it makes my head so full and chaotic I have to go lie down. Sometimes it’s amazing, sometimes it’s my only outlet.
Don’t listen to anyone who tells you how you should or should not write, or what you should do with your life, or how you should feel about writing. It crosses a line and stops being helpful advice, in my oppinion.
YES THIS. I LOVE YOU.
The kind of attitude being complained about is part of why I see myself as a Bob Ross writer rather than a Michelangelo writer. All this scary, harrying “advice” just throws up more psychological barriers… people who want to write should write. It’s not always easy, but making it sound like a Sisyphean ordeal or making sure people have a “calling” doesn’t help anyone. If someone gets a little joy or a little pride out of it, that’s not a bad thing. If it comes easy, if it comes hard, if it’s something they’ll share with their friends (or a thousand strangers on the internet) or lock away in a box never to see the light of day or send it off to a publishing house never to see the light of day… what’s wrong with “writing” as an end goal in itself?
You can work on writing better once you get the writing part down, and maybe you’ll never be great or maybe you will be… you’ve still got to take the first step. Shakespeare’s got to get paid, but there is such a thing as a hobby.
(Source: soracat)
