Everyday Canvas

I Keep Writing Anyway!

Prompt: What makes a writer a writer in your view? And accordingly, do you agree with this quote by Junot Diaz?

“You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.”

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I absolutely agree with the quote, not that I don’t think “writing well and easily and having amazing talent” is something to sneer at, but I have this mulish belief of keeping my nose to the grindstone anyway. I admit, this might come from rationalizing my desperation or my devil-may-care attitude to the details of any vocation, avocation, or an interest I have, but I don’t like giving up easily on anything or anyone.

Life beautiful. So is writing. Life will throw curveballs at me. So will my writing or the lacking parts of my craft when push comes to shove. Life humbles me. So does writing. And just when I think I handle everything well enough, life will smack me down with cruel indifference. So does my writing. Just because life does all those things to me, shall I give up on it like a coward? Of course not. And neither shall I stop writing. As my first sentence in this paragraph says, life is beautiful; so is the act of writing.

I know from experience that the reason most people never reach their goals is because they give up easily. Life isn’t meant to be easy; neither is writing. It is a constant trial and error with lows and highs. And when I can most believe I’ve done good or decide to persevere, that time and that decision may become the most tested.

Even so, even through adversity, I continue, regardless of any negative views of my life or reviews of my work, regardless of any testing of either one of them. A quote by Zig Ziglar always encourages and causes me to chuckle: ““People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” Imagine what would happen if we all gave up on bathing, although I assume some people may do it, feeling worn out from turning on the faucet in the shower.

This daily thing is a biggie for me...both for bathing and writing. For that reason, I try not to miss a day in writing in my blog and then some. I try to write as well as I can with the time I can spare and the ability I can muster. Is my every entry in my blog a success or does any line of poetry or a paragraph of prose live up to my satisfaction? No, far from it, but I keep at it, if only for the joy of the writing process, because something about writing touches my heart and defines me. For that reason alone, I have duct-taped the mouth of my internal critic and told him that the greatest risk with what I write will be to risk nothing.