365 Inspirations—146: Just Write

“The only good writing is intuitive writing. It would be a big bore if you knew where it was going. It has to be exciting, instantaneous and it has to be a surprise. Then it all comes blurting out and it’s beautiful."—Ray Bradbury


I'm reading a very good book that I can't put down by my Aussie friend Torre DeRoche called Love with a Chance of Drowning, so I decided to dig this post up from my archives. It was actually post 146 of my 365 Lessons I wrote in 2010. I think it's fitting for today. How I felt about writing in 2010 still holds true today. Here's the post:

 I've heard people say that they only write when inspiration comes to them. In a past post I mentioned that inspiration is always there, but our thoughts and emotions block access to this. Instead of waiting for a big wave of inspiration to fall from the sky, I just write.

I write everyday, to be exact. I write just to write. When I let go of trying to control what will come from writing, things come out that I never expected. I never plan what I will say here.

I think life is like that. A lot of thinking gets in the way of doing. We make plans and try to figure out a time schedule for writing, or exercising, or art, or anything really. I think it's good to make a plan and schedule it into your day. But some of my best writing has come spontaneously at any given hour of the day or night. Sometimes it comes to me at 2am or in the middle of the afternoon. I never know exactly. And sometimes I feel I have nothing to say, but I keep writing, just as I keep living even when life isn't "amazing."

Writing has become me. I don't really know who "I" am, but writing moves through me. I don't consider myself a "great" writer, but I have something to say. I think we can lose the essence of writing when we try to be too crafty or make it good. I let words fall out on the page anyway they want to here on this blog.

There were times, while writing my book, that I wanted to hide certain parts of my life. I found myself only wanting to tell the "good" stories. But life is not like that. To arrive at anything worthwhile, we have to go through the "not so good" times. O.K...the "bad" times. So I let it all out, I didn't hold back.

I had a conflict with that when I was editing my book. I thought, "Do I really want to expose this much of my life?" But what is "my life" anyway? If you read my previous post, you will see that whatever is "mine" is really just part of the ego that wants to survive. There's the fear of what others might think of this "me" or how I might be judged by what I write.

So why share my story at all? Because I feel that there is something universal about the human condition; that we all share a similar set of feelings. We all go through certain experiences and reading about others who have gone through certain struggles, challenges and revelations in life often times shed light on our own experiences.

Everyone's journey is unique, but we are all in this together. If we are all in this together, what do we have to fear or hide? There's nothing in life that hasn't been experienced by one human or another. There isn't a single emotion that hasn't been felt by one human or another.

What do I have to protect, actually. I am a mortal being. I will end like everyone else. There's not a single person who does not experience birth and death, so how different are we really?

So I don't hold back anymore. I let it all out. I let it loose...I let "me" free. Through writing I share my experience of this life. I write how it is. I write the truth. I just write.

Do you spend a lot of time thinking about what you want to write, or do you just write?