There’s a big difference between what we want to write and what we think we should write. 

Let me explain. 

If you’re anything like me, you experience pure bliss in getting your thoughts down on paper. In capturing a sentence exactly as you want to express it. In totally, completely losing yourself in the act of writing itself. 

Until. 

Until other voices—including our inner critic—crawl in. Whispering, pestering, trying their darndest to direct our pen in a different direction than our true inner compass wants to go. 

If we’re really honest, there is an inner compass within us that often knows what we want to say deep down. And then there are the other voices trying to convince us that our words need to be…

More fun. 

More serious. 

More Christian. 

Less Christian. 

More buttoned-up. 

More raw. 

More valuable. 

Less strategic. 

More like them. 

Less like us. 

… And the list goes on. It is exhausting. Like Michael Scott says in the infamous Dinner Party episode of The Office, “Snip, snap, snip, snap.” Write this, write that, write for them, and also for them, and don’t forget them…

Trying to balance all these opinions, voices, and directions is draining. Impossible. Anti-creative. It takes our work from being our work to being what we think other people want us to make. Which, in the end, is no longer really our work. It’s manufactured, fear-based, stiff. 

Dear writer, this is a reminder that the point of your writing is not pleasing people. It’s expressing yourself. Using your gift. Scratching the itch that can’t be satisfied until you put pen to page. The goal is not to make others happy with everything we do or say—that will literally not be possible. 

This is your invitation—and mine—to put those inner voices to rest and listen to where you want to take a piece. It will probably surprise you, but it will also probably be really rewarding. There’s no feeling quite like affirming the inner artist within us and giving him/her a seat at the table. The practice of letting my inner artist express herself has been one of the most healing experiences of my life. 

Here’s to making art + writing things we believe in and were born to bring into this world. They’re not random, and neither are our inclinations or passions. xo

_________________________________________________________________________________________

P.S. Why I Think You Should Start a Blog and 5 Nuggets for the Writers.

_________________________________________________________________________________________