I see fire

write how you really feel

I see too much writing that is toned down and wearing a neat three piece suit with a pocket watch and other such ‘refined’ accoutrements. Things seem to be written more with a view toward political correctness, with one languid eye towards writing only about the current topics du jour or the topics that are entirely safe, mundane and in fashion. Do not worry about how your writing will be perceived — is it staid enough, will it pass the grammar nazis perusal, does it sound pompous enough, will it be loved by the popes of pedant? It does not matter. Let me repeat that with mucho emphasis — IT DOES NOT MATTER. There is NO fashion to the written word. Do not be a slave to what everyone else is doing. You the writer have an empty canvas sitting before you to fill out with the paint of your thoughts. Yes, your thoughts. You are the only arbiter of what you are writing. Write for yourself. Write to please yourself. Write to impress yourself. Write so beautifully that you make yourself cry reading what you wrote.

Write how you feel. Put your soul into what you write. Do not water down things. Let the fire that is burning within you pour out into hot molten lava running down the page, carrying words and letters in its wake. Those words should transport the reader into the realms that you are portraying. The person reading should feel what you feel. They should feel the joy, the tears, the happiness, and the sadness. They should be whirled around in the entire cauldron of emotions that you felt when you wrote it. The best writing in the world is one that touches you. It touches you deeply and in entirely sublime and life changing ways. It shows you the fragility of life. It shows you how human we all are. It brings out the joy and sadness in human relationships. It celebrates the beauty around us in this world. It shows how simple things can affect you in a way that is inconceivable to most people.

The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear. — Stephen King