“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”
― Anne Lamott
I had a conversation with a writer friend the other day that saddened me. He has just started his journey. While we talked about writing, he kept justifying his right to write and apologizing for how badly he did it. Now, I have never read any of his work, but I balked at his attitude, mostly his justification for pursuing this craft.
Why is it that we question our desire to write? Does the gardener question her right to plant flowers? Does the golfer justify his right to play the game (not counting to his wife, which is another matter altogether)? No. They just do it. Yet I find this apologetic manner in many people who pursue writing. They act as if they are doing something illicit.
I think it’s a curse of the creative to question our choices. I know as a twenty-something I wondered whether writing was too frivolous a pursuit. Should I do something more? I questioned the value of writing compared to saving lives or fighting injustice until I realized that stories can do that too. They tell human stories that touch people and change lives. They matter.
If you doubt that read reviews. Visit fan boards. The love of stories is everywhere. It sometimes even borders on obsessive (I am talking to fellow Sherlock, Doctor Who, Supernatural, Harry Potter, and Marvel fans here).
Story is how we connect with one another and capture our past. It is how we make sense of who we are and what is happening around us.
We don’t need permission to write. We don’t need to make excuses or downplay it as unimportant.
Would you question Shakespeare’s contributions to humanity? Or Dickens?
Ask yourself what our world would be like without Stan Lee, Stephen Moffat or Joss Whedon? It wouldn’t be the same and it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun.
Now I am not comparing myself or you to these icons in the field. You are you and I am me. But who’s to say that we won’t change the world ourselves? I doubt that any of the writers I mentioned above set out to be iconic. They wanted to tell good stories and they did. That is what made them legends.
So I beg of you: Pursue writing without explanation or qualifications. Hold your head up. You are a writer. Embrace it.
Now go tell stories and move the world.