License to Write: Part I (of 3)

 

Adapted from a 2016 NaNoWriMo lecture at the beautiful  Livermore Public Library.

If you write, you are a writer. 
It doesn’t matter whether you’ve published, or just have begun to put stories together. Maybe you desperately want to write, but don’t yet have a story. Maybe you have a story to tell, but don’t yet know how. Maybe you have a story, but can’t imagine anyone else would care about it. In the next three blog posts, I hope to give you license to overcome these doubts and tools to cultivate the faith you’ll need to persevere and survive the process of writing a book.

Answer the question: Why Write?

This is a question only you can answer, a question you must answer.

I can tell you why I started: I write because I love to read. Because I love adventure, but detest risk. I write because stories allow me to inhabit lives beyond my own and connect me to people past and present. Stories make me vulnerable and grateful for my own humanity. I write because I love language, because characters announce themselves to me, because I’m good at it. I write when I’m angry, when I’m sad, when I’m baffled.

Why do you write? Why are you writing this book?

Read the rest on the Sierra Writers Conference Blog:

(Tired of 2016?  Why not get a jump on 2017 by registering for the 2017 Sierra Writers' Conference and by following this blog series, curated by Joyce Wycoff. The series features writing advice from ​Catharine Bramkamp, Bob Jenkins, Kim Culbertson, and myself.)