Writing is a tool...

At a recent day of writing together Writing from the Heart, many of you expressed a desire to write a book or tell a story or felt a longing to express something that niggles at your heart and mind.  Not everyone wants to produce a book or an article or a product but many of you asked, “How do I begin? What do I do first?” Someone even asked, “How do I get published?” Since I am not a published author, my advice in that area would be limited. But one thing I know from my work writing and from reading and talking with other published authors is that publishing is the last step in a very long process. 

In order to be published you have to produce a work of art—at least a work that has the qualities of that genre—a unique expression of you.  What I mean is, you need to focus first on your writing.  Think of writing as gathering wheat, not how it is done these days where huge farm equipment clears a field in a matter of hours.  But instead think about how women and men would gather wheat in the old days gathering stalks of wheat by hand, tying the stalks together in bundles with rope or string and then transporting the bundles to the threshing floor by horse and wagon. Then the threshing begins, beating the long stalks of grain against the hard ground or stone floor to separate the seeds from the stalk and then grinding the seeds into a fine powder that when mixed with yeast, water, oil and salt and allowed to rise is baked into a delicious loaf of bread—and there’s you book! 

This process takes days of steady labor. And it takes lots and lots of stalks of wheat! Lots of gathering, lots of writing, lots of separating the wheat from the chaff and even then you need inspiration (yeast) to make the dough rise, to form the loaf. Writing is a tool that opens the door to your own creativity and thought and good writing requires refining (threshing and milling).  Thinking about how to get published before you’ve even begun to write is like trying to make bread without flour. Got to do the hard work first!

I’ve been writing a memoir for years now.  Maybe I am slow, not as genius as another, but the process of writing and re-writing has honed my skill, has clarified for me my voice—who it is I am that is telling the story.  This has been an invaluable process. And will I ever get published? God knows! But will I write, will I keep writing and refining and understanding myself better with each revision. You bet!

Just start writing and keep writing and maybe one day you will have a great big wonderful loaf of bread to share.  Pass the butter and jam!!