Courage and Relevancy in Writing

Perhaps as part of my nesting instinct during these last weeks of pregnancy–a writers’ version of nesting–I have been attempting to organize and categorize all my old Word documents currently stashed haphazardly on flash drives.

Some of what I find is cheesy and lame–me trying to copy other writers I read somewhere and not doing it well. I hurry past these, shaking my head.

Some of it I find vibrant and passionate and real. These I read and wonder, “Have I lost this all-or-nothing honesty? This sense of wonder? If so, I want it back.”

I like this on why I write:

Courage to rake through coals of experience and memory, to lift out ashy things and hold them to cool air in the public view, to declare that these things, above all things that could have been chosen, are worthy of notice. Stupidity to fossilize on a dead page what was once hot and glowing and real–as if these little black symbols on a strip of virtual white hold any resemblance to reality.

But what is not preserved is lost, and what is not expressed is silent, and that is why I write.

And this on relevancy:

The thing about writing is: if you want to be relevant, if you want to be unique and say something that actually matters to people, you have to say what’s really on your mind. You can’t sugar coat it. You have to describe who you really are and the struggles you’ve really gone through, not the struggles you think you should have gone through, and not the struggles you did go through but tamed down and sugar coated.

And with those two snippets, I’ll close this post, folks. Good night.

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Feature photo by Kenneth Godoy. Follow his work on Instagram at that_blinding_light.