I Am, Therefore I Write

Off and on over the years, I’ve tried.  I’ve tried to give up on the idea of writing for a living, on writing much of anything at all for anyone other than myself.  But it was like trying to turn my back on a lover whom I longingly ached for, but who wasn’t always there for me when I needed him most…yet who would suddenly come back into my life when I least expected him, and totally reclaim me.

 

“You can’t really make a living as a writer,” I grew up believing, or had someone really told me that?  “You need to get a real job.  Something dependable, reliable…something that will be there to take care of you in your old age.”  I felt torn in half, one part of me grasping for the security, stability, and the middle class lifestyle I’d been raised in, and the other half yearning for the uncertain, the exciting, and the freedom with which I imagined artists and actors, musicians and writers lived.

 

I have lived with that dichotomy all of my adult life.  Unlike Robert Frost, I took the road more travelled by, but always feeling like a bored schoolgirl gazing out the classroom window on a warm spring day, wishing I had the nerve, the courage, to play hooky, to break the rules I’d been raised to accept.

 

And yet I can smile at that life choice I made so many years ago.  For if I hadn’t travelled that beaten path, think of all the experiences I would have never had, the places I would have never seen, the people I would have never met, laughed and cried with, loved.  I took the only path I dared to take at the time, even though it never felt quite like I was going in the right direction for me, even though the shoe that I purchased never quite fit.

 

All the while, writing never abandoned me, even during those times I tried to leave it behind.  And now the internet opens new doorways and markets for me, new ways to give in to my passion for pulling words out of thin air and planting them on the page.  I write, and I love it.  How can I feel even the slightest regret about that?

 

Besides, I think with the hint of a smile, one is never too old to play hooky.  Or to continue to pursue a dream.

Here’s to your writing success.

Write Unconditionally

Have you ever felt as though you’ve lost your writing passion?  You know, that once upon a time feeling when the words just flowed, your nerve endings crackled and you lost track of time while writing?

 

Sometimes, when faced with a writing to do list that includes posting to the WriteSuccess blog, writing an article for the Invisible Ink (the newsletter for the International Association of Professional Ghost Writers), and freelance assignments ranging from drafting a press release to editing an ebook, I wonder when writing stopped being fun and became work instead.  Or maybe the feeling comes after receiving a string of rejections, or chasing down writing job leads that go nowhere, or on those days when the only activity you see on your otherwise blank computer screen is the blinking of your cursor.

 

That’s when I know it’s time to take a break from writing for my livelihood, if only for a short while, and do what I call some unconditional writing.  Maybe it’s a long overdue note to a friend, or pouring out my heart in my journal.  Maybe it’s reading other blogs and commenting on them, or simply looking out my window and trying to describe how many different shades of gray there are on a wintery day.  It’s time to write for fun again, without expectation of payment or feedback, and without self-judgment.

 

When I write unconditionally, I revive the simple of joy of wordplay.  I don’t write to inform, educate, persuade, explain or inspire.  I write simply because I can.  And by doing so, I reawaken the appreciation that I can do something well that others struggle with, and that I love something others dread to do.  Then the writing to do list looks fun again, and back to work I go.

 

So when you’re feeling stuck, try writing with abandon.  Write unconditionally, for no other reason than the fact that you’re able to do so.  I think you’ll find that you’re passion for writing wasn’t lost—it just needed to be rekindled.

 

Here’s to your writing success.

 

Mary Anne

Happy New Year!

It’s January 2, 2010, and I am sitting down to write for the first time in this new year, this new decade.
Actually, that’s not entirely true—I wrote journal entries both yesterday and today.  So I guess I can say that this is the first time I’ve sat down to write for someone besides myself  since last year.

I almost didn’t get any words written just now. Sitting at my PC, I find that it’s so easy to click on an Internet browser and begin to surf and read under the guise of research.  I am about to launch an association just for ghost writers (and those who want to be), and although I’ve done a fair share of ghost writing myself, I like to read up on how others find ghost writing work, how they got started, and what they charge their clients.  So I can quickly find excuses for reading rather than writing.

But that’s not what this year is going to be about.  Yes, I will launch the association, but I also plan to get back into writing shape myself—slowly and awkwardly, at first, but eventually toning up those writing muscles of mine over time.  I’m doing it because, in order to inspire other writers to write, I need to set a good example.  I’m doing it because I have been inconsistent for far too long.  I’m doing it because I need to do it.

Often over the years, I’ve encouraged writers to put aside at least 15 minutes a day for writing.  Time for me to take a dose of my own sweet medicine.

And you know what?  It feels good.  It always has felt good, this writing process.  Not always smooth, seldom very easy, but always fulfilling.  It’s what I was born to do.  And if you’ve followed WriteSuccess for any length of time, you know that it’s what you were born to do as well.

Here’s to your writing success in 2010.

Mary Anne

P.S. Interested in learning more about my new association for ghost writers?  Pop on over to http://iapgw.org and sign up for the free newsletter that will begin going out this month.  Or consider being one of the first to join—I plan on making this association THE place for ghost writers to connect with those who are looking for them!

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