Just Write



(courtesy mashable.com)

The air hangs thick, as it always does before a Spring rain.  It waits for the tension to build until the pressure of breathable water is too much to contain.  Droplets squeeze out of low-hanging clouds, resembling too-ripe fruit falling from the overladen branches of trees in late Summer.  Rain falls harder, faster, as the pavement runs in silver rivulets of water along a path that never ends.  Liquid diamonds pierce the earth, soaking into the deep wrinkles of its face, every line a reminder of the incessant need for moisture.

I love to write.

Most of the writing I do is, quite frankly, crap.  But that doesn't stop me from either writing or sharing it with the bloggy world. 

Too many times we, as writers, (and we ARE writers) are afraid to share what we write.  We're afraid people will read us and think we're silly.  We're afraid people won't read us.  We're afraid we aren't good enough, smart enough, that we don't use correct verbiage, grammar, punctuation, spelling...you name it.

We're afraid people will laugh at us.

We're afraid that this child of our heart, our writing, will be subjected to others who will not appreciate our gift to them.  We're afraid we won't be taken seriously - that we'll be cast aside as just another blogger trying to be more than he or she actually is.

Most of all, we're afraid people will read us and think we have no talent.

We hang on by tenuous threads, never wanting others to judge us harshly, yet still seeking the truth about our work.  We live in self-deprecation, never allowing ourselves to believe that we may actually have that spark, that special something that will one day allow us to realize our dream of being published.  It sometimes seems as far away as those hidden planets that have yet to be discovered; at other times, it's as close as the next word.

"Practice makes perfect," they say.  But what of we who want perfection now?

All we can do is write.  We can't help ourselves.  We MUST write.  We must tell the stories of our lives.  We must write and keep on writing, never giving up.  It's the only way we know; the only way to survive this art that owns us, body and soul.

We just write.