Well, I believe the subject of this blog post should scare away anyone who accidentally came here looking for posts from a proficient author. That’s not me. If you haven’t already noticed, I just have a single published novel to my name (though I will admit I have other stories waiting in the wings). I’m not writing as an author: I’m writing as a writer here, and despite what you may have heard, you don’t have to be an expert to write.
The above statement might be good news if you are one of those people who spend their free time creating story characters or setting up plots or running lines of poetry through their heads.
You know, there are numerous writers out there who haven’t published a single story—yet. You might be one of them. And I’m willing to bet that one of the biggest reasons you, fellow writer, haven’t shown the fruits of your imagination to the world is because you think you’ve got to be an expert to do it. That may be the reason you haven’t started putting your imagination to paper in the first place.
It’s gotta be perfect. You’ve got to be a virtual master in the writing field. You need to know your verb tenses and punctuation rules like your high school English teacher did. You’ve gotta be able to stand toe-to-toe with the big author names out there.
I’m sorry, but I really don’t think that’s true. You don’t have to be perfect (hint: that’s how editors get paid). You don’t have to have a degree. At the end, to write, you need one basic thing:
You need to enjoy it.
I’m not talking about the research paper on environment and the ozone layer than you had to drag yourself through to pass your English course. I’m talking about the stuff you wrote without anyone telling you to do it. You wrote that because you enjoyed it. You created those characters or that plot or those verses in your brain because the desire was there. You got pleasure out of it.
That means you can write for, in my opinion, just about the best reason anyone should write: you love doing it. God put talents and desires in you to glorify Himself and to give you joy, too. Don’t cheat yourself out of that enjoyment. You may want to be a fabulously famous author one day (hey, I’d love to be there, too!), but that’s not the point. The point is that you love to create with your pen (or keyboard).
You might get paid later to use that creativity, but right now, wherever you are in your writing journey, write because you love it. Step out, scribble that first sentence, name that character, build that story, show that novel to your best friend. If the desire is in you, don’t stop. Keep going, see where God takes it, and, above all, enjoy the ride.
After all, isn’t that the point of art?