to write and reflect.

"You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write."

-Saul Bellow 

  

It's that last word we have to have, that nagging to come out, won't let you sleep, don't think for one second you'll have any peace, can't stop thinking about it word that just. won't. stop. This is what it is to write. This is what it is to have an incessant need to communicate with those who care to read (because, so often we write so much better than we talk) what we've written, no matter the cost. And so we stay up. We burn the midnight oil, though more often than not we honestly can't afford to. Yet, we do it anyway. We write. For, to have something to write residing in us, and to not have it come out is...death. Write or die. Dramatic? Probably;-) But, not for those who have felt it. What is it to be a writer? This:

"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

-Thomas Mann 

Yes. It's harder, painful at times, but still and still yet, we do it. Not because we have a choice, because trust me, there are times I'd like nothing more than to stop longing with every breath I draw into my lungs to write. Write. Write. About what? Everything. For life is one long novel in our minds, an endless parade of words that dance before us, somehow just out of our reach...and what we do manage to capture is but a shadow of what we saw, what we felt, what we know. Yes, we write what we know, what our souls are made up of, what our hearts dwell upon.

So, then let me ask you...who do you read? What do you read? For I can assure you, the author in whose words you have fallen in love with are but the reflection of what your soul and heart hold. What you enjoy immersing yourself in, it is the mirror in which is reflected all that which resides in the deepest corners of your heart. To be a writer is simply to find the words that others cannot, but long to. And so, if you have connected with written words, there is good reason.

I have thought about this often, and as Jane Austen stated, "Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery." As a writer, what mirror am I offering my readers? What concerns me when I write? What am I trying to convey? The truth. Always and forever may it be that. And may it be given to me from the Author and finisher of our faith for as long as I breathe the air He has put in my lungs. If I cannot write that which He would have me write, it is all vanity. If this is a gift He has given me, then may it forever and always be used to glorify Him, to point my readers to Him, to reflect Him. This is the mirror that I would have, that when you read the smallest things I write, no matter how normal and commonplace they may be, that you would leave knowing how much He loves you. That He has given beauty to even the smallest, most ordinary moments, if we will but take the time to gaze into His eyes and see as He sees.

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life, and you will save it." 

-C.S. Lewis

© Jade Valcarcel 2012. All rights reserved