Recently I re-read a motivational book. In it, Isaac Bashevis Singer is quoted: Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.
One of the hardest things a beginning writer must overcome is the despair produced by this chasm.
All of us who write have this vision inside our head of the story we want to tell. We can see it. We can feel it. So why is it so hard to interpret that vision in words on paper so that others can read it and then see the same story that lives inside our heads?
I don't know the answer to this. I just know that turning your vision into something everyone can recognize is the hardest thing in the world. So often, we become discouraged when we read the pedestrian pages we've written. They're nothing like the bright shining story we want to tell.
If this has happened to you, then you must hang tough. You can't give up even after trying time and again. You have to suck it up and stay with it. You must write and write and write, always striving to convert that vision into a word picture others can embrace.
Yes, it's hard to keep writing when you think you'll never get good enough to tell your story properly. Yes, it's hard to hang in there and pay your dues. There's a word for those who don't want to do this - unpublished.
There's also a word for those who write thousands of words without validation, without reward, and, suddenly, one day, they realize they've taken something from their brains and turned it into prose that allows others to see their vision. We call them published.
One of the hardest things a beginning writer must overcome is the despair produced by this chasm.
All of us who write have this vision inside our head of the story we want to tell. We can see it. We can feel it. So why is it so hard to interpret that vision in words on paper so that others can read it and then see the same story that lives inside our heads?
I don't know the answer to this. I just know that turning your vision into something everyone can recognize is the hardest thing in the world. So often, we become discouraged when we read the pedestrian pages we've written. They're nothing like the bright shining story we want to tell.
If this has happened to you, then you must hang tough. You can't give up even after trying time and again. You have to suck it up and stay with it. You must write and write and write, always striving to convert that vision into a word picture others can embrace.
Yes, it's hard to keep writing when you think you'll never get good enough to tell your story properly. Yes, it's hard to hang in there and pay your dues. There's a word for those who don't want to do this - unpublished.
There's also a word for those who write thousands of words without validation, without reward, and, suddenly, one day, they realize they've taken something from their brains and turned it into prose that allows others to see their vision. We call them published.
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