Do it for the write reasons!

Am I the only writer who fears she’ll never be read? Her works never published or used anywhere, never affecting anyone?  I hope not.  I would hate to fight this battle solo!  I’ve already talked about why I write, I’ve talked about my perfectionism-problem, now let’s cover the combo together.  Perfectionism gets in the way of my writing.  I can write because I have a story to tell . . . but if I spend my time worrying about it instead of writing, someone else will discover my story. 

Lately I’ve been plagued with this lack of confidence.  I don’t know what to blog because I feel it has to be “perfect”.  I think it has to be something everyone will want to read.  It has to either cause controversy, entertain, or uplift dramatically.  Nothing small.  Shoot for the stars. 

Then I realized that such a mindset is not one of a writer.  It’s of a person seeking fame.  I blog because it’s good discipline to get me to write daily, since I’m not actively working on any of my stories.  I love people’s comments, I love checking my blog stats to see how many hits I’ve had . . . but it’s not my purpose.  I’m learning to stay true to my goal: write. 

I had to ask myself a difficult question:  If no one ever read anything I penned, or didn’t like it if they did, would I still write?  At first I said ‘I don’t know’, then I changed my answer to ‘yes’, now I’m kind of wishy-washy again.  Because I want to be honest. 

I honestly would write to relieve stress and I’d still make up stories in my mind.  But I can’t say that I’d put them on paper.  And yet, how could I not?  Why create a character who is never given the chance to live?  Many times I day-dream for the heck of it, but those occasional moments when I stumble on a jewel, it begs me to cut it out of the rock, polish it and bring it into the light where it can shine.  I wouldn’t have the power to refuse to obey!

One of my favorite quotes is by Isaac Asimov, a writer and scientist.  I’ll leave you with his intelligent words:

“I write for the same reason I breath.  Because if I didn’t, I would die.”