It's a Beautiful Thing So Many People Want to Write a Book
or write anything for that matter
There’s a statistic tossed around that 81% of Americans want to write a book.
And I find that incredibly moving and utterly awesome.
Not because I think everybody needs to write a book, not at all, but because that many people want to play with words and ideas and stories. Want to make something out of nothing.
A few years ago I was at a dinner party and another woman went on a rant about how people who weren’t talented at writing and hadn’t been published by “real” publishers had no right to call themselves writers. All I could think as she blathered on was, “You poor thing. How badly you must want to write and how harsh someone must have been to you once upon a time.”
I’ve also had other writers and writing teachers make condescending remarks to me because I have written personal growth books, not novels or memoir, and because I work with all kinds of writers, not only literary writers or professional writers.
People are built to categorize, judge, and create hierarchies. I get it. But I refuse to do it. I think it’s poisonous.
When you use writing to pass what’s in your mind and heart to someone else’s mind and heart, that’s amazing. It’s magic as far as I’m concerned. When you carve meaning out of this chaotic cacophony of life, I applaud you. When you dare to be seen in your own writing, to be seen by you or someone else, what you believe, what you know, what you’ve experienced, that’s glorious. When you offer a hand made of words to another person or yourself, a hand that says, “Take this, use what you need. You are not alone,” that’s making a miracle.
Nobody gets to stop or judge your desire to write and create. And those that try are most likely like the woman at the party — terrified they will die without having declared their stories, their ideas, their spirit. Terrified by the ghosts of judges and gatekeepers and other stifled creatives into a silence that chokes.
It is never too late for us to claim our writing life, to run wild in those worlds, to spill ourselves onto the page.
If you know someone who needs encouragement believing in their right to expression, please share this with them. Thank you!
May your writing flow this season and always.
And speaking of flowing, I am taking a break from writing It’s Not Too Late for the summer so I can work on my novel. I’ll be back in mid-September!
If you are writing this summer, tell me about your project or projects, I’d love to hear and cheer you on.
Love,
Jen
I have heard that everyone should plant a tree and write a book in their lifetime. While planting a tree is clearly for the benefit of the environment, then writing a book is clearly for the benefit of the writer first, and if it reaches other readers, the better. Even if people don't write a book, one is inside them. Small-big, light-heavy, simple-literary - it doesn't matter. I enjoyed reading your take on this.
I love this so much. So much compassion for that woman who put down people who write. And such love and awe for the act of putting down words. Thank you. This one is getting printed out and put by my desk for when I get discouraged. I am a writer and I write!