I have a theory about writing.
I’ve long been an avid consumer of blogs, with books as my very first love. I never had cable television after going off to college, so when I stumbled upon a blog during my semester abroad I was intrigued. There I was, terribly homesick and sitting in an internet cafe in the heart of Quito, Ecuador, when I came across a blog featuring photos of the writer’s daily meals. The voyeuristic nature of blog reading hooked me instantly.
From there I fell hard down the spiral of food blogs, workout blogs, mommy blogs, fashion blogs, book blogs, home decor blogs…the list goes on.
I quickly noticed what separated the wheat from the chaff in my blog reader: the writing. I fell in love with each author’s compelling words made whole when coupled with beautiful photos. When put all together, each blog post told the story of a life I would never live.
Despite my devotion as a reader, blogging and blogs felt distinctly outside of me, over there, too distant to touch.
I dabbled with a blog in 2008 (who didn’t?) but by then the powerhouses were emerging, and my little Blogger blog paled in comparison.
Who was I to have a blog? I wondered. Who was I to take up space (even the teeniest, tiniest, most remote, and probably most ignored corner of the internet)? Who was I to be a writer?
After years of reading blogs and thinking about blogging as a concept and as a career, my theory about writing is this.
There are some for whom writing is as natural an act as breathing. Inhale. Subject, verb, object, period. Exhale. Edit. Inhale. Publish. Exhale.
There are others for whom writing is like birthing a child–the mental avoidance of the subject matter until it’s no longer physically possible to hold it all in. Like a baby desperate to exist in the world, the words come forward whether you’re ready or not, regardless of how you feel about the process. Sentences move through you and on in their journey in such a way that you have to remind yourself that they once belonged solely to you, in you.
I am the latter.
For the longest time I was hesitant to say I was a writer. To confess my love of crafting phrases and singing sentences. To admit my heart’s greatest desire: to write.
It wasn’t so much that I didn’t think I had anything to say—I knew I did and I knew I should and I knew it wouldn’t be so bad to sit down once and a while and type out the words. But writing, like all good things, takes discipline. It takes surrendering yourself to the process of doing without fear of failure. It takes knowing that your first draft may not be your last, and being okay with the shaky first steps, even while others are already off and running.
I began writing in second grade—with the purchase of my first journal. I still remember its blue cover with the words of the Serenity Prayer proudly displayed:
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
I was so proud of that journal and wrote almost daily. It was probably filled with stories of crushes and fights and make ups with friends, with thoughts about vacations and school. What I didn’t know then, is that that journal set the stage for over two decades of journaling and writing.
A friend in college once saw me journaling and said, “Writing is the gift God gave you to communicate with your soul.” I agree.
And like most God given gifts, writing comes with a sense of responsibility to do the work, to throw your hat in the ring regardless the outcome. And like most God given gifts, the gift of writing comes with the fear of squandering it.
Last year was one of the hardest years of my life. And all the while, the heartbeat running through it and the whisper in my ear said, “Write.”
My second grade journal knew what’s up. It spoke the truth about accepting my calling as a writer. And it told me to have the courage to sit down and get to work.
And so write I shall, outcome be darned. Because I no longer have the choice to ignore the whispers of my soul, to turn away from the quiet longings of my heart, or to not become that which I am already becoming. A writer.