"I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I write and I understand." - Chinese Proverb
You cradle it to your chest, and picture yourself seated at a table autographing copy after copy for your adoring fans, making the rounds of the late night talk and early morning news shows, and eventually, seeing the credits on the big screen announcing that yours is the book this Oscar winning film is based on. Okay, let's rewind to reality. To begin with, being a writer is not for the faint of heart. There will be, over the course of your endeavor to write, numerous distractions, which will attempt to keep you from achieving your dream. Not the least of which will be you own lack of confidence in your ability to write. You will toil ceaselessly to produce a work that will gain acceptance, and then have agent after agent, publisher after publisher, reject you as though you and your work had leprosy. Finally, should you succeed in getting your book published, you will discover: you have signed away all your rights; learned that all those book signings and TV and radio appearances will only happen if you make them happen; become painfully aware that if there were any profits to be had off this venture, it is your publisher who will reap the rewards, not you; and, six months later, what's left of your book inventory will no longer grace the various bookstores' shelves, but be sold by your heartless publisher to the highest bidder for, dare I say it - scrap. Then, why write? Because, whatever story you have to tell, the world needs to hear it. It may not win the Pulitzer Prize, it may never make the New York Times Best Sellers List, or end up on the big screen as a major motion picture, but somewhere, someone's life will be touched by your words. They may laugh, they may cry, you may frighten them out of their wits, give them a sense of peace, show them a better way to cope, or just help them pass the time sharing the adventure of your written word. So, what have you got to lose? Give it a try. Grab that pad and pencil, sit down at your computer, load a cassette in your tape recorder, whatever method you choose to use, and write. Oh, my, gosh, what is that evil thing set before you? Why it is a blank page, so bare and brilliantly white that it is blinding. Or, is it a glaring blue screen that the screen saver keeps appearing on because your hands are frozen to the keyboard? Or, has the tape run out with not a word recorded on it?
At the beginning, of course, you say. No, maybe in the middle, who knows. Or, even at the end, that's a possibility, too. You see it's not where you start that counts, but that you do... start.
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Have you ever gone into a bookstore, walked to the table holding the latest best seller, picked it up, stroked its glossy cover and wished the author's name on it was yours?
Oh where, oh where, do I begin, you ask.
