The Compulsion to Write
I’ve often heard writers say, “I just
have to write.”
To be honest, I’ve wondered if that
meant I wasn’t a real writer because I didn’t feel that compulsion.
Could I feel complete without writing?
While I thought the answer was likely yes, I took a good hard look at my life
and realized that’s probably not true—at least not without an outpouring of God’s
grace.
For those of you who haven’t known me
for at least five minutes, you may not know that I am a relationship-driven
extrovert who loves to talk. (I remember a game we used to play while walking
to the school bus at the end of the day. Someone would suggest a topic and the
one who could talk about it longest was the winner. Guess who often could talk
the longest about even things she knew nothing about?)
Another Way to Communicate
As I thought back over my life, I
realized that writing is just one more way I communicate—with others, with the
Lord, with myself. (And I definitely can’t
imagine losing the ability to communicate.) I’ve come to view the journaling I
do for my eyes only as “rambling until I stumble across truth.” I pray most
effectively when I write in my prayer journal. Otherwise, I’m too easily
distracted. (I have what I call Butterfly Syndrome, my mind flits from one
thing to the next to the next.)
And what about communicating with others via the written word?
My answer to that was what made me
wonder if I was really a writer.
Does someone have to read what I write?
Do I need to produce a best seller to
consider myself a success?
Because the answer to those things is
no, my definition of writer—at least successful writer—differs from that of
many others.
But can I see myself not putting words
on paper—or the computer screen? Facebook updates? Blog posts? Poems? Prose?
Random thoughts?
Nope. Nope. Nope.
The Written Word in Many Forms
Over the years, my writing has taken many
forms: poems no one would ever read; encouraging notes and cards that arrived
in the recipient’s hand at just the right time, evidence of God’s work in my
life—and theirs; journal entries; advertorials for our local newspaper; hundreds
of blog posts over the last five years; devotionals; co-authoring Paralympian
Deborah L. Willows’ memoir; etc.
So, just when did I become a writer?
Probably the first time I put pencil to paper to record my thoughts—approximately
five decades ago, long before anything I ever wrote would be published.
Do I have
to write? The more I think about it, the more I would say yes. It is what
God intended me to do.
What does that look like? It changes
from year to year, but it still involves some form of communication through the
written word.
If
you’re not what you think other means by the terms writer and author, it doesn’t mean you don't qualify. If you can’t imagine not putting
your words out there for one reason or another—or just recording them in a
private journal, you are a writer—as I am.
