To the shy writer hiding inside
I have battled through the crushing weight of my favorite literary pieces, and none of my words even remotely being in even the same ocean, let alone the same boat.
Anything I had ever written was locked within the dusty ripped out pages, shoved in a dark corner, never to be read by anyone, ever. It just didn’t feel good enough to see the light of day. Never good enough for it to actually reach people.
It took me a really long time to reach the stage of acceptance of my writings and the fact that no, you do not need to be a Booker nominee to validate your writing. You don’t need a line-up of publishers to write. You don’t even need a hoard of readers to write.
The first and only step to writing is: forget the world, forget the readers, forget everything, just write. Your writing does not need to be a perfectly polished masterpiece. It doesn’t need to be an 800-page volume. It does not need a musical rhythm.
What it does have to be is yours. Write what you feel. Write without overthinking on what next. Write abundantly. Don’t let the fear of not being good at it hold you back.
No one gets it right on the very first try. Those rare ones that do, must have had a triple-dose of Felix Felicis. No one is good at something right off the bat.
What we see, the books, the journals, articles, papers, they are rarely first attempts. What we see is the final result of intense remodeling, editing and polishing. An extremely lengthy process repeated over and over again, until getting a satisfactory result.
Yes, it is intimidating at first, to see the great works of art you admire, and then see your own creations. you feel it doesn’t measure up. You will find it lacking.
Because you are not reading that writer’s very first attempt. Everyone has to start somewhere. And not everyone starts at the same point in time, or life, or circumstance.
Every writer’s journey is unique. If you consider someone else’s journey as your standard, you would give up even before you have started.
Will you let the writing giants terrify your words into the back of your minds, never to see the light of a paper; or will you write your own story?
Find it here...