We writers are lucky folk.
Isn’t it cool that people are willing to pay us to:
- research and report news stories,
- market goods or services,
- explain or share technical knowledge or other kinds of know-how?
I’ll bet you’ve also noticed how handy your writing talents are your civic and personal life, as you use your gifts to:
- express gratitude or appreciation,
- publicize organizations or events you care about, or
- write letters on behalf of causes you believe in?
Alone at the writing desk, you may find your creative writing project especially fulfilling. You may write because you:
- simply love the tools, the craft, the process,
- feel you have something you absolutely must say, or
- you’re one of those blessed folks who simply cannot not write.
Your expressive talents are marketable, adaptable and deeply needed by the world. As a writer you have so many opportunities to use your gifts!
Amidst so many options, it takes real intention to show up for your own work, doesn’t it?
Why Your Own Work Matters
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from surviving cancer twice in my 20s, it’s that life is short and the time to do what really matters isn’t later. It’s now, now, now.
- Because your words have the potential to steal the hearts and days of an engaged reader.
- Because “everybody is talented, original and has something important to say,” (Brenda Ueland, If You Want to Write, Greywolf Press, 1987).
- Because when you write what matters most, you’re more patient at home, at the gym, on the road and in the grocery store.
- Because when you show up for your real writing work, you’re happier and you model for your friends and kids what it’s like to be a working artist (empowering them to do the same).
- Because when you make time to write what matters most to you, you spark that otherworldy light behind your eyes, that delicious glow you notice when you look in the mirror or see reflected back in the smile of someone who really knows and supports you, that joyful inner radiance that says, wordlessly:
“I’m choosing to live in integrity today.”
“I’m alive. (Truly.)”
“I use my life and talent to do what matters most.”
Are you making time to express your gifts in ways that truly matter?
Do you show up each week to write what matters MOST?
Try This:
Let’s call this little exercise “Drop and Give Me Ten.”
First: Set a timer, fire up your word processor or get out a notebook and explore “writing that matters most” in a 10 minute (or more) freewriting session.
When you’ve finished, take a moment to share your insights & ideas with me over on my Facebook page. I can’t wait to hear what matters most to you.
Image Credit: gutter (flickr.com)
