Writing time

I’ve been reading a lot of quotes lately from writers about finding time to write.  The consensus seems to be that “real” writers spend time, significant time, every day, working.  You can read books, blogs, magazines, and find thousands of distractions but if writing is your life, you devote yourself to it .  That means a lot of words and sentences, whole paragraphs and pages, that may be crap.  Crappy or not though, you’re not likely to write well if you aren’t writing for several hours a day.  It’s not an easy life, to say the least.  I say that as an unpublished, aspiring writer, and it’s far from original.  It’s an encouragement to myself to stick with this.  I had Chicken Soup for the Writer’s Soul for a while, and it was great for giving examples of how perserverence paid off for authors.  The love of writing has to carry you when your belief in your own talent is minimal.  Ultimately, you face yourself every day and that’s probably the most daunting aspect of writing, at least for me.

I’ve taken to ending my blog posts with a wish, or a blessing, for anyone who might read it as well as for everyone who doesn’t. (the vast majority)  May each of us trying to find our voice have the strength to open our minds and ignore our inner critic.  May we be willing to write crap, knowing that within it there are jewels of inestimable value.  May we also trust our heart that says with every beat, “write it, write it, write it,” knowing we have something to say that is worth writing about.  Bless us, published and unpublished, famous and unknown, as we gather up our courage and strike the first key with our fingertip, launching ourselves into a new galaxy one word at a time.