John Gardner: You Aren't Fooling Yourself, You Really Can Do It

I subscribe to AdviceToWriters.com, a site that shares quotations from well-known writers, and had to share this one with you because it really hit home for me:

In my own experience, nothing is harder for the developing writer than overcoming his anxiety that he is fooling himself and cheating or embarrassing his family and friends. To most people, even those who don’t read much, there is something special and vaguely magical about writing, and it is not easy for them to believe that someone they know—someone quite ordinary in many respects—can really do it. (John Gardner)

It can feel presumptuous in the extreme, the thought, the belief, that others would care to read our words, the stories we dream up and scribble down. The idea, if taken out and examined for too long or too often, can seem ludicrous. And that thought can, more than any other, dry up our inspiration, dissolve our will to write.

Others do want to read what you write because no one else has your particular view of the world, your particular set of experiences. The unpublished writer is an unmapped, uncharted, country awaiting exploration.

Or at least that's what I think. :)

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Photo credit: mikebaird