I can’t tell you how many nights I have sat there, written something, then cried over how I never thought it was good enough. I never felt like an excellent writer and I always felt like I would never be anything. So, this is for all the writers, who write with all they have, and still feel like they do not have a right to say it.
You sit there and every day you write. You write all the gold that is trapped inside your soul, you write until your head is no longer full, and you write until your heart is satisfied. You write, all for what seems like nothing. Because after you write and reread it, you feel like it’s awful. You compare it to famous authors, you think it’s already been said, you think it’s not good enough to be said.
Let me tell you this though, young writer. And I need you to open your heart, soul, and mind to what I am going to say. Not very many people will tell you this.
What you write, has meaning. You wrote it to heal yourself and someone, somewhere, needs to hear what you have to say. Someone, somewhere, will be healed with your words. Stop worrying if it’s all been said before, because it has been, but it has never been said by you. You are the only one who can write from your unique perspective, and it needs to be shared with the world.
You have to write, there is a deep burning inside your soul, a deep ache in your limbs, stretching for a pen to scribble words onto paper. You are a writer, you don’t just want to write, you need to! And most of the time, you don’t want to. You don’t want to revisit that memory, you don’t want to feel that knife entering your back again, you don’t want to sweat from the fear again.
We aren’t happy people. When we write, whether it’s about the joys in life, or the pains and sorrows, we have to feel some sort of discomfort. We don’t just feel the happiness and write, in order to feel that happiness, let alone write about it—we have to experience pain.
We all have gone through horrendous things in our lives. And we all have different ways of coping. You need to write, you need to express, you need to shout from the rooftops. Because maybe, when you shout, your voice will sound like a song to someone.
We all have something to shout, to sing, to whisper. And if we don’t let it out of our souls, it will rust and intoxicate our blood, to the point of emotional death.
You are a perfect writer. Not everything you write will be perfect, but you are perfect, because you try and you express. You take the fear trapped within your fingertips and you use it to write. You use your fear to type, scribble, or scratch.
You doubt yourself daily. Wonder if writing is even worth it anymore. Wonder if you’ll ever make yourself into something. But I promise you, if you never try, you will never succeed. That itching feeling in your body you get when you grasp a pen, that’s your soul shouting to be released. That shiver down your spine when you see a beautiful notebook is your brain telling you to just let go, and feel. Your body is telling you to try. To do everything you can, to shout, whisper, sing, anything.
You will always be a writer and you must always write. Because what you say matters to those who have felt your pain. Writing helps you, and you will forever need to continue to write. You may doubt yourself, fear you will never make something of it, and feel your writing is worthless. But I am telling you the truth when I say it is worth it. When I say you’re amazing. And that you are priceless, as is your writing.
“If you can’t beat fear, do it scared.”
by Kaitlynn Schrock