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 a recent post on Writers Unboxed, author and coach Kathleen McCleary shared her reasons for writing. Here’s an excerpt from that post:

The answers to the Why do I write? question are as varied as we are, we writers, we joyful, tormented souls. You can find a great compilation of quotes from well-known writers on why they write here. When I really thought through this question for myself, I came up with this list:

I write to process my own feelings. I became a novelist in my forties, when my husband and I made a cross-country move and I had so many intense feelings about leaving behind our home in Oregon—the first house we’d ever owned, the house we’d brought our babies home to, the neighborhood where we’d established deep, life-long friendships—that I didn’t know what to do with it all. So I started writing a story about a woman who had to sell a house she loved because she was getting divorced. I could pour all my sadness about the move, my passion for my house and my hopes for the future into that character. And a side effect of processing your emotions honestly in fiction is that what you write rings true for readers. Crazy as my main character was (a little crazier than me), I found an agent and sold it in a pre-empt very quickly because it had an emotional truth that resonated with people. I can’t tell you how many readers and reviewers wanted to tell me about the houses they’d loved and lost. No matter what feelings you’re processing, you’re not the first or only human to feel that way, and that resonates.

I write to connect. Author Jami Attenberg said “I write because it is the thing I have to offer, the sharpest skill I have. I write to make people—and myself—feel less alone. I write because I want to communicate messages with the world.” It’s deeply gratifying to have readers respond to what I write because it resonates for them, as with all the people who wanted to tell me about their beloved houses, and makes them feel seen and understood. One reader wrote to me: “You managed to describe thoughts and feelings I couldn’t even begin to put into words. I found myself saying to myself, YES. That is exactly how it feels.’” Do I write to elicit that kind of response in readers? Well, hell yeah.

I write stories so I can control my own narrative, give my characters some of the experiences, choices, and emotions I wish I’d lived. We can provide our fictional characters with the deeply empathetic parent we wish we’d had, the lover who “gets” us on a soul-to-soul level, the wild career success we wish we’d enjoyed, the son we wish we’d had—not to mention creating characters with qualities we wish we embodied. George Saunders (Lincoln in the Bardo) says, “The result of [the] laborious and slightly obsessive process [of writing] is a story that is better than I am in ‘real life’ – funnier, kinder, less full of crap, more empathetic, with a clearer sense of virtue, both wiser and more entertaining.”

Read the rest of the post here.

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: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life, New York Times bestselling author Maggie Smith breaks down creativity into ten essential elements. Here’s a thought-provoking excerpt:

Tenacity means sticking with it even when it’s not making you feel good. Even when your ego isn’t surfing a big, wonderful wave. Maybe your ego has been pulled under and is being trashed around.

This is where patience comes in: You have to keep trying, persisting, without instant gratification. We have to press on even if the conditions are less than ideal, even if we experience pushback, even if we don’t have the time or materials we wish we had, even if it’s taking longer than we expected. Remember that progress is often gradual, incremental, sometimes two steps forward and three steps back. Transformation rarely happens in some eureka or aha moment, because this isn’t a movie, it’s life.

When it gets difficult, stay with it. Don’t use difficulty as an excuse to “take a break”—because we all know that in this life, it’s all too easy to be sidetracked. To close the laptop or the notebook, to pick up your phone or the TV remote, to go make a snack, to do those chores you’ve been meaning to do. An intended fifteen minutes can turn into two hours, or a day, or weeks.

STOP. The laundry can probably wait, the clean dishes in the dishwasher aren’t going anywhere, there’s nothing good streaming (and if there is, well, it can wait). Your creativity is calling. It needs you. Work on your endurance and stamina. Wring your mind out like a rag over a bucket, until it’s bone-dry. Get every drop.

Remember: Attention is a form of love.

Source: Dear Writer, pp. 205-206

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 a recent post on the Writer Unboxed blog, award-winning author Greer Macallister shared the following insights:

I don’t remember the time before I was a reader, just as I don’t remember the time before I was a writer. I’ve always read for the joy of it. Now, as a published author, I read for a number of other reasons as well, but the joy, if I look for it, is still there.

It’s one of the reasons I don’t have much patience for people who think they should write a book but can’t remember the last one they read once that wasn’t assigned in high school or college. People who say “I’m going to revolutionize [genre]!” without ever having read a book in that genre. People who claim proudly that they’re the first to write a book that addresses a certain situation or worldview without doing the research to figure out how many books exist in that space already.

Because for most of the writers I know, we can’t un-link the two. We started writing because we loved reading. We’re over the moon that we have become the people we once looked up to, creating stories that fill readers with emotion. We may not read at a blistering pace given life’s other demands and temptations, but if you give us the freedom and space to choose an activity, reading is going to be high on the list.

Reading is also an important job responsibility as an author. I used to say that I read less frequently for pleasure these days because I’m so often reading for professional reasons, like manuscripts to blurb, books I’m reviewing, or novels I’m interviewing fellow authors about for in-conversation events. But I’ve realized that all the reading I do, even with an expectation attached, is still a source of pleasure for me. I’ve never subscribed to the aphorism that “if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life” — it’s still work — but it is significantly easier to get through that work if you find it enjoyable.

On occasion, I do find that my identity as a writer influences how I read. I fully admit that if I know a novel has been wildly successful, I too often go into reading it with a chip on my shoulder, jealous of the writer’s success. I acknowledge the bias. It also turns out that in most of these cases — most recently for Lessons in Chemistry, The Wedding People, and The Correspondent — midway through the book, I find myself acknowledging Oh, yes, I get it. I’m reading differently than I would be if I weren’t a writer, yes, but being a writer doesn’t make it impossible for me to enjoy someone else’s book. I may be more conscious of structure and technique than the average reader, but when the book is good, I can still get fully lost in it.

All this to say that if you are a writer, you are also a reader. What we read changes, but why we read remains the same. We read because we are readers. We are readers because books bring us joy. And we are writers (at least in part) because we want to bring that joy to others.

Source: Writer Unboxed

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.

Bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert ends Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear with the following reflection:

Creativity is sacred, and it is not sacred.

What we make matters enormously, and it doesn’t matter at all.

We toil alone, and we are accompanied by spirits.

We are terrified, and we are brave.

Art is a crushing chore and a wonderful privilege.

Only when we are at our most playful can divinity finally get serious with us.

Make space for all these paradoxes to be equally true inside your soul, and I promise—you can make anything.

So please calm down and get back to work, okay?

The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes.

Source: Big Magic, p. 273

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.

Here is a thought-provoking excerpt from Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling book, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear:

I think a lot of people quit pursuing creative lives because they’re scared of the word interesting. My favorite meditation teacher, Pema Chödrön, once said that the biggest problem she sees with people’s meditation practice is that they quit just when things are starting to get interesting. Which is to say, they quit as soon as things aren’t easy anymore, as soon as it gets painful, or boring, or agitating. They quit as soon as they see something in their minds that scares them or hurts them. So they miss the good part, the wild part, the transformative part—the part when you push past the difficulty and enter into some raw new unexplored universe within yourself.

And maybe it’s like that with every important aspect of your life. Whatever it is you are pursuing, whatever it is you are seeking, whatever it is you are creating, be careful not to quit too soon. As my friend, Pastor Rob Bell warns: Don’t rush through the experiences and circumstances that have the most capacity to transform you.”

Don’t let go of your courage the moment things stop being easy or rewarding.

Because that moment?

That’s the moment when interesting begins.

Source: Big Magic, p. 247