I don't know what it is I'm supposed to write, but I just feel I need to do it! I've always loved to write, and have always been afraid of it too. I've read enough in my life to know that bad writing is just....really bad. So I've been afraid to write, knowing that my attempts would not be a masterpiece or a best-seller.
Lately a quote has been running through my mind--something I copied from the board in my sophomore English class. "Writing is easy. You just pick up a pen and bleed." Drop by painful drop, it eventually all comes out.
I was inspired this summer when I read an amazing series by Nancy Turner, beginning with the novel, These is My Words. I was completely taken in by this story of a pioneer woman in the Arizona territories. Her world became so real to me and I've found myself thinking about these novels for weeks after finishing them. While researching the author, I came across this quote:
"As I catch my breath here between three-a-day book events while touring Arizona for the One Book AZ program, one thing comes to mind. That is, that this story, my story, would have been very different if a man in 1920 had not bothered to write his story. It was Henry Prine's memoir that put our family history on the map in Arizona, and inspired me to write my first novel. In these posts and profiles of myself, I have proudly - because they represent years of hard work - listed degrees that I earned along the way. BUT! I began writing that first novel long before I had even gone through the local community college. And Henry, my great-great uncle, had never been as far as high school. What I'm getting at is this: It's never too soon nor too late to write something. Your life is yours alone. No one else has lived it, no one else can tell it. You don't have to have a string of degrees to begin, nor even a sense of spelling and grammar. If Henry had waited until he could "do it right" it wouldn't have been done, and oh, how much I would have missed!
I want to encourage everyone to write your story. Not just where you lived and when, although those things are important. Write what you remember about your important events, what holidays were like, what you remember being surprised at, or not liking. Remember a food you loved or hated? Remember a gift you treasured or a secret you told to your siblings? Something as simple as a pair of new shoes is a great thing to a child. You don't have to be something unusual to be a writer. The fact that you write makes you a writer. Leave a journal, leave a memoir, leave a letter to a great-grandchild yet unknown. It's reaffirming proof of our existance, and I can't begin to count the number of people that have said to me, "I have my great-grandfather's letters to or from ____, and I treasure them!"
"The fact that you write makes you a writer" is my favorite line. I haven't been writing on a regular basis, but I plan to start today.
"The fact that you write makes you a writer" is my favorite line. I haven't been writing on a regular basis, but I plan to start today.
