Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Write Who You Are
"... [W]hile you're alive, it's never too late to be who you might have been."
Barbara Haines Howett writes this sentence in an article she wrote, which is published in the February issue of The Writer magazine (www.WriterMag.com). I was reading the article while working out on the elliptical this morning at the gym. Funny, I thought, I was just thinking while walking my warmup routine, of all the students I have taught who have said to me that they are not writers and/or it's too late for them to start writing. I always ask them: Why? Their answers are usually the same: Writers are special people, people born to write, people who have been writing since they were very young. Nonsense, I respond. Writers are people just like you and me. The difference between them and you is that they are writing. Yes, it's that simple. They are putting their thoughts down on paper (physical or electronic) every day. Whether they are writing in a personal journal, blogging in cyberspace, or pecking away at the next Great American Novel, they are writing. Moreover, they are writing from who they are as unique beings. There's no one else in the universe like each of them or you, for that matter. Yes, the subject matter might have been written about many times before, but only you can bring your perspective to that subject, which makes the piece different, special, unique--you.
And, that's why you have to start writing today, right now. Your community, your state, your country, your world, our universe need to hear what you have to say in your writing. We need to look at things from your perspective. No one else can do that for us. So claim your place in the line of this world as a writer, now, and get writing.
Barbara Haines Howett writes this sentence in an article she wrote, which is published in the February issue of The Writer magazine (www.WriterMag.com). I was reading the article while working out on the elliptical this morning at the gym. Funny, I thought, I was just thinking while walking my warmup routine, of all the students I have taught who have said to me that they are not writers and/or it's too late for them to start writing. I always ask them: Why? Their answers are usually the same: Writers are special people, people born to write, people who have been writing since they were very young. Nonsense, I respond. Writers are people just like you and me. The difference between them and you is that they are writing. Yes, it's that simple. They are putting their thoughts down on paper (physical or electronic) every day. Whether they are writing in a personal journal, blogging in cyberspace, or pecking away at the next Great American Novel, they are writing. Moreover, they are writing from who they are as unique beings. There's no one else in the universe like each of them or you, for that matter. Yes, the subject matter might have been written about many times before, but only you can bring your perspective to that subject, which makes the piece different, special, unique--you.
And, that's why you have to start writing today, right now. Your community, your state, your country, your world, our universe need to hear what you have to say in your writing. We need to look at things from your perspective. No one else can do that for us. So claim your place in the line of this world as a writer, now, and get writing.
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