Writing is a powerful experience. It speaks to the heart, mind, and soul of us all. Writing is timeless and spans across cultures, ages, even civilizations. As humans, the words we write and the words we read have the power to literally change the world. And frankly words have been doing just that since the earliest known recordings of man. In this series I want to talk about writing and the process to becoming an inspired, productive, consistent writer. How can each of us, if we so desire of course, join this age-old conversation that we humans have been engaged in for millenniums now? What does our voice wish to share with the eternal universe?
More than likely if you’re reading this blog, you appreciate words and ideas, and you have probably experienced the powerful inspiration to write flow through your veins at least once or twice in your life. And that’s great! And maybe you were able to squeeze out a few lines, some pages, or even a story or two. But then, if you’re like nearly every single one of us, the great writing muse probably went away, quieted down, retreated into some recess in a galaxy far, far away. Perhaps it felt like your inspiration and creativity was abandoning you, leaving you forsaken, all by your lonesome, unclear about what to write next. Or maybe you had so many ideas flowing through that your brain short-circuited, and you were struck with paralysis overload, exhaustion, or frustration. Whatever the case may be the ONLY question is why aren’t you writing anyway? What is stopping you from continuing on and forging ahead?
Let’s start with the first basic premise that you are an amazing, awesome being with ideas worth sharing and communicating. Let’s just go ahead and start with that. Get it right out into the open. Walt Whitman sang throughout Leaves of Grass, and most especially in Song of Myself, of the beauty, uniqueness, and electric power within all of creation, not the least of which can be found even in a “spear of summer grass.”
I celebrate myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
As writers, communicators, even ourselves as beings upon this Earth, it is vital for us to also celebrate something – ANYTHING! The act of writing is an act of sanctity. We make holy that which we utter, that which we formalize with our thoughts, infuse cohesion with our feelings, and in so doing we inevitably discover some truth for all to be reckoned with. This is a holy and grand gesture indeed! And one worth the struggle, not the least of which benefits the writer themselves, perhaps even more so than the reader. This means that we have a purpose – a reason to forge ahead and continue to express and slave over our work. In the case of art and creation it would seem that indeed the ends do justify the means, no matter how challenging they may seem to us staring upon a stark, blank page.
Speaking before a group of journalists and writing majors at the Point Loma Nazarene University, Ray Bradbury states very profound and inspiring remarks which echo Walt Whitman and the reasons for us all to share and communicate as writers, artists, even as beings on earth (to see the full video of his speech which I highly, highly recommend click here).
What have we been put here for? The question is asked time and again. I’ll tell you. There’s no use having a universe, and billions of stars, there’s no use having a planet Earth, if there isn’t someone here to see it. You are the audience. You are here to witness and celebrate. You are here to witness and celebrate. And you’ve got a lot to see and a lot to celebrate. That’s your business. You put it into your work. You put it in your stories.
Yes! This is it! This is the truth of creation! Ray, as usual, nails it once again. To witness, as Ray Bradbury names it, requires that we acknowledge ourselves, that we know who we are and that we realize that we are in fact alive and we do experience life! This reinforces our first premise as discussed above. We are miracles of life, and as such we are naturally designed to express those miracles. The celebration is the expression. And to express we must first bear witness. To celebrate is to express, and to express is to witness. Ray continues his speech to a grand crescendo:
We are here to be the audience to the miraculous…You owe to the Universe. The burden of proof is in your lap, and in your writing. And you’ve got to payback. I demand it! Now you get the hell out of here and do that, and you’re going to have a good life.
There it is my friends. There it IS! This is a reason to write, a purpose to labor with words, to engage in craftsmanship and expression. Even beyond writing, this applies to all arts and letters, all creativity and being. Ray speaks to the truth of our existence. We as writers are here to express those truths in words and stories and ideas and characters and imagery and landscape, beauty and relationships. This is our medium, the body and form we wish to breath life into just as our Creator has breathed life into us. Art then is God-like. It issues life anew. Like birds spreading seeds through the sky, helping new plants to germinate and take root across the land, so too does writing carry truth and experience across time to peoples and lands yet unimagined.
There are many blog posts out there about how to write every day and be a better writer. And I do not wish to criticize any of them. Heck I’ve probably desperately read them all myself! But in most of them they talk about discipline and scheduling and outlining and word counting and reading books on writing by famous authors and all sorts of other various “things to do” if you will. Now I do think many of those types of things to do are important and can help us as writers to accomplish more and become much more productive. In fact in future posts I plan to join that same conversation and share some of the various types of tips and suggestions that I have found work for me. But I think with most things in life, we must start with first causes. We must begin at the actual beginning. And for writing that actual beginning lies buried in what we have discussed here – the celebration of life! The mystery of the universe! The quiet, profound, and unique voices and dreams that dwell within us and can even haunt us, stalking us, desiring deeply for us to pursue them, grapple with them, and belt them out into some brand of expression all our own. All humans yearn to create for we ourselves are Creation. We are all artists, burdened or tasked, honored or privileged, however you wish to look at it or feel about it today, but the truth is we are here to share our genius whatever that may be – humorous, witty, frightening, profound, beautiful – whatever it is, it is our own. The blessing not just for ourselves, but for all of humanity, is to put whoever we are, whatever we experience, down to words, to art, to craft, to raising a family, to baking a cake, to something – anything – that is our expression. We make this world whatever it may be. We can bless this world, and it can start with the art burning deep within each one of us.