Guilty pleasure: I love reading about writing. I suppose you could equate that with watching a DVD workout from the comfort of your couch. (Oh come, you’ve done it!) But still, information and insight on the craft of writing, the procrastination, the resistance, the love and the glory of it all, I find all of it so very fascinating. Some of my favourites, anything by Anne Lamott, anything by Natalie Goldberg, anything by Steven Pressfield. Also in the notable, re-reads are Annie Dillard, Dani Shapiro and Stephen King on the art of writing.
I think what I love so much about these books is the humanness of their struggles. Not one writer claims that they woke up with words bubbling out of them just ready for the typewriter, laptop, pad of yellow paper. They all fight it. Like crazy. Each and every one of them crawls to the keyboard, has a variety of ways to stay there from egg timers to muses to praying to ultimatums. Many lose these bets to laundry and pets. But they do it again. And again after that. And that is what thrills me. Even these famous writers, these successful published people, still, have bad hair days. The overwhelming consistent piece of wisdom that comes up is my all time favorite creativity topic: show up. They show up. They write books in 15 minutes a day. They go to workshops and close the door to the world for two weeks. They get up at 5 in the morning. You name it, they are just people with lives, pots of coffee, kids to drive to school and spin classes they know they should go to. Ok, some of these people are Stephen King, but even Stephen King wasn’t always Stephen King! He slogged. He showed up. He wrote non-stop and didn’t worry about where it would be published. He did it for the love it and after enough days of showing up, he had a manuscript. Manuscripts. Plural. I don’t need to explain how his story ends.
So here I am. Little old unknown writer-painter-creative girl, blogging into thin air and trying so hard to show up. 15 minutes at a time. One painting at a time. One blog post at a time. It’s all been said before, right? But not my me. And not by you. So write. Write in private, write for your friends, write a letter, write an email, write a list, write a post. Write your world. xo
