Wednesday, April 18, 2007

“How vain is it to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live?”
“Write while the heat is in you.”
Henry David Thoreau.

Write, write, write... When you have nothing to write, write anyway. Just doodle with words. Describe something; your pen or your fingernail. Just WRITE! TYPE! EMOTE with words! It isn't necessary to make sense or to flow or be spelled correctly. Just WRITE!


To be honest, the above are not necessarily my own sentiments. Honestly it is a drastically bastardized paraphrase of something I think I read several years ago. And, well... My memory is certainly not perfect.


For the sake of honesty, it was indeed a sentiment of instruction given to budding writers from a classic science fiction writer. Sorry, but I simply do not remember to whom it should be attributed to. That failure of attribution not withstanding, I do strongly agree. One who wishes to be a writer, should write.


While I cannot be classified as a prolific author, and honestly I haven't had a single piece published in the last 10 years or so, I still write. Not only do I still write, I write a LOT more. Some of it makes sense. Some is utter and complete garbage; just literary doodling on my computer screen. They consist of character sketches, plot and story ideas, article ideas and research, setting descriptions, and even, just free association of words and thoughts.

What ever it is, I stand up to live and I sit down to write.

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