In Which Writing Is Not Entirely Unlike Horses

Horses?

Okay, I nearly went with baseball, but even barring my horse-crazy nature, I know almost nothing about sportsball. Horses it is.

Sporting

Let’s say you’re a fan of an equine sporting event.

Racing (quarter horses or thoroughbred or standardbred)
Show Jumping
Dressage
Steeplechasing
Rodeo
Western Pleasure
… anything.

Lots of different flavors that all tend to boil down to a love of horses in general. You can love watching these events without actually owning or knowing how to ride a horse of your own.

Genres

And let’s say that you’re a fan of books.

Fantasy
Sci-Fi
Mystery
Biography
Travel
… anything

You can love to read without being, yourself, a writer.

Riding

If, however, you do happen to be a rider, you might be striving to join in those sporting events. You might not.

Perhaps you love to ride and spend time with your horse just for the joy of it. You love to curry and saddle up and go for a lazy trail ride, even if there’s not a blue ribbon at the end of the day for your troubles.

Writing

Same goes with writing. You may hope one day for publication and bestseller lists … but perhaps  you just love meeting the characters and the flow of words on the page or the taste of them on your lips.

The Silliness Of Discouragement

Say you have a friend who is a casual rider.

They like to ride, but they don’t enter contests, and aren’t interested in the demanding training necessary to get themselves and their horse in blue-ribbon shape.

Would you tell them they were wasting their time, and that they should just sell their horse and give it up outright?

So why, dear writer friends, would you tell yourself that you were somehow “doing it wrong” if your writing isn’t on the NYT Bestseller lists?

Why the shame in writing just for fun? Why do we drive ourselves to “prove” something, to someone?

You can call yourself a horseman even if you just ride for fun every once in a while, and you can call yourself a writer even if you just write for fun every once in a while. You wouldn’t expect a green rider and horse to go out on the field and win ribbons without a RIDICULOUS amount of practice, nor should you expect yourself to be the next J.K. Rowling with the first story you ever write.

Not “Writer” Enough

If you write, you are a writer. No matter what level your writing is at or what level you want to take it to.

It is the passion for the thing that creates the writing community, that burning desire to tell a story. That’s what makes you a writer. There may be tiers within that term, levels of writer-hood that may or may not have any true meaning, but don’t ever let someone tell you that you’re wasting your time unless you’re planning on going all the way.

Don’t ever let someone tell you that if you’re not writing for at least an hour every day, you may as well give up now. That if you don’t have a thousand-and-one ideas for stories and characters that you’re fooling yourself with this writing hobby of yours.

Own your passion, whatever it may be. Don’t let someone else (or even the negative voice in your own head) tell you that you are somehow not worthy of it.

Regardless of whether that passion is text on a page or the thunder of hooves on turf.

Related posts:

On Writing a Webserial
Love of Writing
Writing Playlist