You end up writing when...

You end up writing when the need to write is

stronger than the fear of rejection,

when curiosity and your desire to discover

something new about yourself and the world--

and what you think and feel about it all--

is stronger than your fear of failure.

You end up writing when your voice, 

telling you that you must write, 

is stronger than all the voices in your head 

telling you to stop.

You end up writing when you cannot

not write, when it feels as essential to 

staying alive as breathing, and when writing each 

word, your hand shaping each letter on the page, 

is as vital and life-affirming as 

taking a breath.

They say if you want to write

They say if you want to write

you need to write about

what hurts the most,

so you ask yourself

what's causing you the most pain,

and then you wait

to see what your heart reveals.

But what if they're wrong

and you don't need to write

about what hurts the most?

What if you need to write about

what you love most? About life?

About what you're most grateful for?

What if you need to write about

what you notice in the world

around you--the beauty

of a cardinal's red feathers

flashing in the morning light,

the sound of the wind riffling

the leaves on a spring day,

the pleasure you feel when

you stretch and open your eyes 

to wake up each morning?

What if you feel pain on some days,

love and gratitude on others, and 

you let your pen take you

wherever you need to go each day,

creating a path as you go?

What if you give your heart a chance

to reveal what it feels,

give yourself a chance to hear

what you need to hear and

write what you need 

to write?

Where to swim next?

How do you figure out what you want to work on after finishing a project?

Not what you think the market will welcome. Not what will earn the most money. Not what other people might want you to write.

What do you need to write, to explore, deep in your heart? What will give you the most joy, the most satisfaction? What will you enjoy working on the most?

Some might say it doesn’t matter–that you can write about anything and enjoy it. But I’m not so sure. I think the subject has to match the inner need of a writer, the desire of a writer to find out something unique to him or her.

This desire is, ultimately, what carries a writer through the doldrums and fear of failure and anxiety about taking risks. It’s what motivates a writer to return to the page day after day, even when he doesn’t know what he’ll write that day.

Maybe this desire is simply the need to hear your own voice. That voice has to be compelling enough to draw you back to the page, and its compelling nature comes directly from the passion with which you pursue a subject. When you’re passionate about something, you can hear that intensity in your voice. It’s as if you create a high-energy spark on the page when you set off in search of something that you need to know ... but don’t yet know.

There’s hope and pleasure in the search itself and joy in the journey. Without that spark of pleasure or that desire to know, your voice remains flat, and the flatness undermines the reader’s (and your own) ability to believe in the voice as authoritative, as true.

When you begin a project, you can’t know whether it will bring these qualities out of you. You have to take the risk ... and monitor your feelings toward a project once it gets underway. You have to recognize when your interest flags, when your desire slackens, when your attention is drawn elsewhere and you begin wondering what it might be like to explore a subject over there rather than the subject in front of you.

These are signs that it may be time to move on to another subject or re-examine what drew you to the subject in the first place. Is the original curiosity or passion still there, still inside you? Is it still strong enough to motivate you to pursue the project?

Part of the mystery of the writing process is how we come to the subjects that draw the words out of us.

It takes patience and skill in writing and in listening--and courage to move in a direction that may make you uncomfortable--to explore what you don’t yet know... in order to find out what you need to know.

For more on following one’s passion, visit:
http://www.ineedmotivation.com/blog/2008/04/7-questions-to-finding-your-true-passion/
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/how-to-find-your-passion.html
http://momsonedge.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/follow-your-passion-and-live-the-life-you-love/
http://susannassketchbook.typepad.com/susannas_sketchbook/2009/05/may-18-2009.html