Reading · Words, I live by

I just finished editing a chapter of my fan fiction, and I thought I’d pop on here. I’m smiling. I’d been away from this particular story for ages, and, wow, I love what I wrote. It feels good. There’s work to be done to polish the rest of the story, but it’s so much better than I remembered.

Have you been here before? Unabashedly pleased with your writing. I soak up this feeling. It feeds the not-so great days.

Someone once told me I was too romantic about writing – or something to that effect. I can’t remember her exact words, but they’ve stuck with me.

Is it a bad thing to be a romantic? What does that even mean? It would be pretty cool to be lumped with the Romantic tradition. Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake. And I do strive to see the beauty in the mundane.

The bad thing for me was that I took it as negative. I automatically thought there was something wrong with me. This is what strikes me now looking back on it. I jumped on myself rather than letting the comment - I think it was a comment on Twitter - float on by.

Running up against someone else’s opinion can be startling. I questioned my beliefs. Was I naive? I stopped writing for a few days. What was I doing? Who was I? What did she mean?

Then, I dusted myself off. I remembered why I write. First and foremost, I write for me. It's a love. A compulsion. A drive. You may feel it, too.

Writing is important to me. Words and stories and characters have saved me. I bet writing has saved many of you, too. Whether you’re a writer or a reader - or you watch movies and television - words have influenced and entertained you.

I’ve learned about the world from reading the writing of those who are different from me. I’ve realized I was wrong or ignorant about a subject more than a few times. Growing up in the environment that I did, I never quite understood how closed my mind was until I read someone else’s point of view. The words and ideas I knew expanded and so did my heart.

What are your experiences with writing and reading? Has a book or a blog or a social media post every changed your mind?

My love affair...

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