If You Want to Write: Thoughts on a Writer’s Life

Are you very excited about writing?  Not that anyone here would suggest that people are not, but I’d like to present the question for people who are just beginning the writing process.  I will not suggest to you to ever stop writing, but here are a few thoughts of mine about writing.

If you want to write, you will need to be passionate. You need to accept that mistakes happen — and you need to have a passion for fixing them.  You need to love your writing when no one else does, and still find passion for what your have written.  You need to show a passion for editing when your editor tells you that what you have just written sounds horrible but your idea is great.

If you want to write, you will need to deal with pain:  the pain of rejection, of bad reviews, of family and friends hating the fact that you have succeeded in your dreams, of people who you expected to care and don’t, of the highs and lows, and the pain of not selling that book.

If you want to write, you will need to have love.  Love for every second of the process.  Love for the writing.  Love for the editing.  Love for the book designing.  Love for the publishing.  It’s the love of being a writer.

If you want to write, you will need to cry.  Cry because what you thought was good was not.  Cry because a sale of your book happened.  Cry because a sale didn’t happen.  Cry because you’ve finally, after so many years published that book.

If you want to write, you will need to laugh.  Laugh at your mistakes.  Laugh at yourself.  Laugh because that pencil broke for the the hundredth time.  Laugh because you know you are a writer, and there is only one of you.  Laugh because your life is something for you to enjoy.

If you want to write you will need to feel all these things, and that makes you a better writer.