a writer.

I am often giving advice and encouraging people here (and in life). If I believed in a calling, I might say that was mine. Friends have told me that I am like a compass always pointed in the right direction. I've been told that I have my head on straight. When I was a supervisor, my evaluations often told of my calm and confident personality.

I am going to tell you that I offer up advice, I write here and I encourage everyone else because I need to hear it myself. I write here about my method and my commitment because I need to believe it's possible and I need to believe it's real. I need to believe I can do it. One thing I have learned over time is that you should never ever ever question a creative spirit, even a creative urge. Don't ask for motivation and don't ask for a product. Foster it and nurture it and believe in it. And just wait.

I read this post last week and, while I can appreciate the overall idea, I was still horrified by what I read.

If you consistently find ways to avoid writing then perhaps you need to ask yourself if you really want to be a writer. You can’t really call yourself a writer if you don’t actually write, and if you’re not doing it then maybe your heart just isn’t in it. [...] If you’re doing it for fame, or money, then forcing yourself is never going to work. If you’re doing it because you love writing, then you probably don’t need to read this post.

I was horrified because:
-I consistently find ways to avoid writing. I thoroughly clean my kitchen. Every night.
-Sometimes I don't actually write. There have been long, dry stretches.
-Even though I love writing, I do need to read posts encouraging me. Like....all the time.

And most of all, I was left with a punch-in-gut collapse at the words, "You can't really call yourself a writer..."

So I'm writing with one purpose today and it is to say this: I AM A WRITER. I am melancholic, I am shy, I love food, I love coffee, I scare easily, I have a wild and dark imagination, I love people, I play music, I hate toes, I laugh easily, I have big teeth. Sometimes I hate writing, sometimes I don't do it, I constantly feel incompetent and untalented. But I am a writer.

I you are reading this and you want to write, let me be the one to tell you that you are a writer too.

Despite all of the internal struggle and mess, despite every variety of hang-up that rears it's head, I still know. I know because I love a sentence. I love it in the way you cradle something, let it string out across your hands and trail through your fingers. A beautiful sentence with words carefully placed, distinguished, imbued with meaning beyond meaning - it is pure joy for me. I also know because I feel the rush sometimes. When you sit down with something stupid to write about, a prompt or the bus ride in the morning or whatever. And three sentences in, you're writing something else and it is like a flood that you can't contain. It comes out violently. Your fingers fail you and you can't get the words out quickly enough. When you stop, your arms and ears are tingly and you're out of breath. And I know because I just feel it, whatever it is, creative impulse, desire, longing. I'll be damned if I don't give that space to grow into what it will.

Something that I need to remind myself, and so I will also remind you, is this: the right thing to do, the thing that will challenge you and stretch you and make you grow, it will not be easy. Do it anyway.