The Writing Life
To be an artist means not to compute or count; it means to ripen as the tree, which does not force its sap, but stand unshaken in the storms of spring with no fear that summer might not follow. It will come regardless. But it comes only to those who live as though eternity stretches before them, carefree, silent, and endless. I learn it daily, learn it with many pains, for which I am grateful: Patience is all!
— Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, “The Third Letter”
Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories…By writing we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others, too.
— Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey, “Writing to Save the Day”
What’s summer without some sales? Write Right is taking advantage of the trend with one of her own. Purchase Write Right’s Emergency Hope Kit between June 1 and August 1 and receive a complimentary pen.
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Proverbs 13:12 (NASB)
The more I’ve promoted Write Right’s Emergency Hope Kit, the more Dean Young’s words come to mind. He’s speaking of writing, but he says it’s the “horrible work necessary to do to get to writing well, that is so difficult one may just not be willing to do it.”
Today, I thought I’d let you hear me talk about the Emergency Hope Kit. I did say part of being a better writer is talking about projects, didn’t I?
Learn more at my Kickstarter!