On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

I highly recommend Courage & Craft: Writing Your Life Into Story by author and teacher Barbara Abercrombie. In this clear and insightful book, Barbara shares the nuts and bolts of writing essays, memoirs, poems, and fiction. Here’s an inspiring excerpt from the Introduction:

Whatever it is you want to write, it’ll begin with you sitting down and opening a notebook or a new computer file. There will be no bolts of lightning, no muse floating overhead to tell you that the moment has arrived, that now is the time to write your story. Your parents, your spouse, your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your kids will not announce out of the blue that you have talent and beg you to begin writing immediately. You will always, always teeter between believing you have all these wonderful stories to write and worrying that the wonderful stories will not be very interesting. Nor will your life be in such pristine order that there will be endless worry-free hours in which to write.

You can sit around for the rest of your life dreaming about writing your stories, longing to bear witness on the page to every amazing thing you’ve seen or lived through, and wishing for a message from above, that bolt of lightning, some signal that will let you know now is the time to start being creative. Or you can just buy a notebook or turn on the computer and begin writing.

It’s that simple and that complicated.

Source: Courage & Craft by Barbara Abercrombie, pp. xiv-xv