Dear Fellow Writer,
I know it can be difficult to be a writer. People think that we’re crazy for loving the feeling of keys beneath our fingers or the sound of a pencil scratching against paper. Other people do not understand the exhilaration of writing a piece that has all the right words in all of the perfect places. Not everyone knows what it feels like to feel your own heart and soul quite literally pour into a piece. You are special. You are different. Most of the population of the world looks at writing as a chore. We are the lucky ones that have a special knack for stringing words together.
In the first grade, I fell in love with writing. My teacher, Mrs. Yano, had us write paragraph-long stories. My classmates hated when we had to do those assignments, but they were my favorite. Writing was my first love. Many of you may have had a similar experience. Writing can be a great lover. Once it is there for us, it stays.
With that being said, it is so easy for us to sometimes shut ourselves off from the real world. We can become too busy creating another world on our laptops or in our notebooks that we forget to live in the real world. Sometimes, our biggest adventures happen on a piece of paper, and that is no way to live. We also sometimes immerse ourselves too deep into the world. We over-analyze and look for deeper meanings. We go crazy trying to understand other people and want to find inspiration in everything. We then get writer’s block because we cannot think. We go crazy because it feels as though it has been forever since we last wrote something worth writing. Writing can be a controlling lover. Sometimes, we forget to live.
It is important to remember to let people in. As unfortunate as it is, we cannot go through life living in our journals. We can absolutely write about different experiences, but writing will not be there to hold you when you are sad, it will not take care of you when you are sick, it will not go out with you to celebrate a promotion at work. It is okay to let people in. It is okay to let them infect your writing. It might be hard for them to understand you at first if they are not a writer as well, but letting them in will pay off in the long run, trust me. And if they turn out to not be the one, you will always be able to write about them. Writing is a forgiving lover. It will be there for you even when you have been off loving someone else for a while.
Do not let people deter you from your love of writing. Your writing is an extension of yourself, and it will always be there for you. Even if you pursue a profession that is not writing-oriented, you can still process the world from your notebook. Do not let people convince you that you are crazy just because you love to write. Writing is a great, controlling, forgiving, wonderful lover. Sometimes, it helps us live.
