Popcorn and Pigtails

This is my entry in the writing contest, You Are Enough, hosted by Positive Writer.

Dear Writers,

Writing is hard, but we do it anyway. Alone, conflicted, hesitant, we write, wondering if our words matter. This is what we’re made to do.

The pay sucks, if we’re lucky enough to get paid at all for our writing, so many of us work other jobs. Nobody expects us to make a living from our writing. Nobody believes we’re the next J.K. Freaking Rowling or Walt Effing Whitman. But somebody’s gotta be the next great popular novelist, the next great poet. Why not you? Why not me?

Who wants to read what we write? Anybody? We’ve gotta make people want to read our words, even more than they want to Netflix And Chill, even more than they want to gorge themselves on YouTube videos of baby pandas. Our words must be like salt and sugar, our stories like caffeine. It’s hard, damn it, but we’re up to the challenge.   

The rejections are brutal, relentless: “Thank you for your submission! Sorry, but it’s a big fat NO. No, no, no, no, no. You. Have. Lost. Again. Better luck next time! Keep writing!” Here’s the crazy thing: we do keep writing.  

We never stop tinkering with story ideas, editing and rewriting, agonizing over every comma, creating characters who do and say all the things we’re too scared to do and say in real life. We keep blogging, to an audience of two (thanks, Mom and Dad). We bleed quietly in blue and black ink, secretly filling notebooks, always wondering if our words are good enough to share with other people. Psst! Your words are good enough.

We keep reading, striving to become masters of our craft, wielding our pens like light sabers. We are Jedi poets. We are honest, hardworking reporters and brave storytellers. We are the artists translating feelings into words, narrating this moment in history, sharing the experiences and dreams that shape humanity. We are powerful and necessary.

Don’t ever shut up, dear writers. Nobody else on this earth can speak with your voice or build your poetry or express your vision. Speak! Build! Show us! Even when it’s hard, keep writing.

Your words matter.

Sincerely,

A fellow self-doubting writer who probably won’t win this contest (who entered anyway, because her words matter)