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.

In her latest book, Dear Writer, New York Times bestselling author Maggie Smith breaks down creativity into ten essential elements. Here’s an uplifting excerpt:

Writers are here to risk, to find new territory. We have to be very careful not to censor ourselves when we draft, not to impose order on the piece too early. So what if you’ve always written poems in meter? So what if all your stories are in first person? So what if you’ve never written a lyric essay? Or if you’ve only written essays? No one is born excelling at anything. Most babies aren’t even particularly good at the basics: eating and sleeping.

Don’t worry too much about the form as you get the raw material down; that would be like making a container at the same time as trying to fill it.

I’ve been thinking about how our work—and our lives—can stretch and change shape to accommodate more than we might think. About how writing and living both require imagination. We can’t change the past, but the rest is up for grabs. We get to make it up. We get to decide today, tomorrow, and on and on what we will try, do, and be.

On the page and off, we get to surprise ourselves.

Source: Dear Writer, pp. 76-77.