How to Stay in Love With Writing, and Why It’s Important
With a Love of Writing, There is No Limit
A successful life of writing begins and ends with love. There is no way around the importance of this famous and euphoric feeling. Love is the glue of our lives.
Yet, why love? Why not goals or will-power?
Unlike other driving forces, love comes from a tender place within us. Different from the power of our minds, love radiates from the center of us, a force able to compel our bravery beyond expected limits or foolishness beyond our thoughts.
Love is a phenomenon so great that is has changed our world, and is a part of the foundation of life.
Nothing is as powerful to bring us through struggles as love. Will-power can only last while we have strength to sustain it. Love, on the other hand, seems to have no limit. There is no quota of love we have found that can be filled. Love abounds, and through loving the work we do it can be accomplished no matter the difficulty.
The love of writing started us on this journey, and while the further we journey the more obstacles we encounter, with love supporting our efforts we can travel on.
Whatever challenges we face, if we stay in love with writing the impossible heights will be possible.
Will hate outweigh love?
What did you love so much about writing that caused you to start? Was it storytelling? Crafting unforgettable and striking sentences? The magic of creating a whole world from scratch?
Take a minute to think on the love which started you out.
What was so capturing to you that you had to write?
Even though your love was strong when you began, as you traveled on there is no doubt you came upon elements of writing you disliked. Perhaps its the blank page waiting for words, or the novel outlining. How about research, marketing, or blogging?
What are the things you can’t stand or hate doing, yet are part of being a writer?
Will the young love you had for writing withstand these dislikes and challenges?
Perhaps not.
The magic you had at the beginning may have long vanished as writing transitioned from a hobby to a career. If it has, is all hope lost for you as a writer? Is writing really for you if dislikes and mountains surround you?
No, and Yes.
If writing is a drag, and you can stop this moment and move onto the next thing without regret, than a writing life may not be for you.
But if writing is a drag, and you think about moving on, but cannot go forward without being drawn back to the pen in your hand or keys under your fingers, than writing is for you.
If you cannot leave your writing life behind even when you dread starting to write, you need to continue writing by moving onto the next stage of love.
How to keep in love with writing
Your first love of writing was unhindered by what you disliked. When beginning, you saw the good things — you were writing what you love. Yet as your writing life progressed, you found parts of writing you did not love.
For our first love to survive these difficulties, the roots must grow deeper in the soil and the plant rise in the air. Your love grows by learning to love what you did not at first love.
Search through what you dislike, and find elements of the tasks you do like.
Examples:
- Don’t like research? Think of the opportunity to learn new and interesting things.
- Dislike like novel outlining? Appreciate the ease of drafting after.
Find what you love in what you dislike. Learn to appreciate what you hate. Enjoy the journey, through the good and the bad.
A love relationship with writing must find the desirable in the undesirable. Love must persevere — must grow — to the point of pain at times.
In the end, though, love is worth the growing pains, because being in love with writing will make your life a joy to live.
Faith in writing, not fear
With such a fierce force as love by your side, the mountains you face can be overcome, and what you dislike become achievable challenges.
When you can find love in what you dislike, you can appreciate those tasks, and even enjoy them. A love relationship with your writing must be kept alive, must be worked for without pause. An effort to be kept for as long as you write.
It takes strength from within to do so, but as your love grows your strength will grow as well. You will move up one stage at a time, until the mountains around you now will seem like foothills, and the heights surrounding you then concern things you could not imagine now.
You will persevere as long as your love is alive, and impossible heights will be achievable as long as love remains the centermost force.
Learn how to stay in love with writing today, and you will face the challenges of tomorrow with faith, not fear.
Are you a fiction writer in love with storytelling? Check out my free eBook We Write.
