Advice on Writing and Life

"E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard."- Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life)

This quote is exactly what I needed for inspiration today. I think it goes along with the idea to stop and smell the roses along the way. It's all about the journey.

Writing and Storytelling

I am a writer.

I've always been a good writer, but I'm still learning how to be a good storyteller. I'm learning how to trust my right brain/random abstract side and push the concrete sequential part of my brain aside while I write. I can always have my grammar queen friends critique my bad sentence structure later, but really listening to your creative side isn't easy.

How many times do you come up with this cool idea, only seconds later think...oh, that was dumb.

I decided to start this blog as testament of my writing journey. Yes, of course I want to be published, but it isn't the end all/be all crowning achievement of my writing (although it'd be nice) journey. My writing is me. It's who I am. I will always write. I am a writer.

If someone said to me, you'll never be published (it has happened before--I know hard to believe) and I believed them, it still wouldn't stop me from writing.

I am a writer.

But what I also want to say is...I'm a storyteller. I will get there. I'm working on it.