• Stop telling yourself, “It’s too late.”
• Stop waiting until you make enough money to do something you’d really love.
• Stop telling yourself, “It’s just my ego” whenever you yearn for a more creative life.
• Stop telling yourself that dreams don’t matter, that they are only dreams and that you should be more sensible.
• Stop fearing that your family and friends would think you crazy.
• Stop telling yourself that creativity is a luxury and that you should be grateful for what you’ve got.

Julia Cameron, in The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, page 7

I’ve been moving, among other things, for the few of you who check this page and have been wondering. In the coming weeks, I’m going to be reading Julia Cameron’s book. I’m going to try to let go of my fears in the process. I don’t intend to post my responses to her writing prompts on this site, but we’ll see!

I’d thought I needed the motivation of a blog to write, respond to prompts, etc. But there are so many prompts out there, and they don’t inspire me so much. Much of what I want to write is intensely personal; how do I find it within me?

Recently, I decided to follow the example of other writing bloggers and read an inspiring writing book. That would be a good way to get a “jump start” into my writing, right?

I decided to start with a book most writers quote, Stephen King’s On Writing.

So I read it.

I hated it so much I couldn’t come back to this blog for a week. I couldn’t bring myself to even think about writing. Read my review on my book blog to read my thoughts on it.

How did I get the desire to come back to writing, to this site? Well, I’m still pretty disgusted, but I’m healing. The healing process continued as I read again.

I was reading Never Give In: The Best Winston Churchill’s Speeches. These are political speeches, written by the Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Sir Winston Churchill. And as I read these political speeches, I came across the most beautiful explanation of why I want to write. I posted it on this site.

Write on Wednesday asks: Do you ever feel the need to jump start your writing? What drains the energy from your “writing mind”? What do you do when your creative battery dies?

What drains the energy from my writing mind is poor writing. I’ve decided that when I need a jump start on my writing, it won’t be by reading other writing blogs. It won’t be reading the memoirs of “best-selling” authors. It will be by reading inspiring, well-written words of good writers. Quality, not quantity.

I’ll still read blogs; I’ll still read “best-sellers” (sometimes). But I won’t find the inspiration I need from those sources.

That leads me to the question, “Why do I have this writing blog, a collection of mediocrity?” I don’t know anymore. I may be back and write something here again. But it’s not really what I need.

The question: Why in the world do you come to the page?

The answer: I don’t know.

How do I not know? I wondered. I’ve always considered myself a writer. From the first time I wrote my own story, I wanted to write more.

I’ve always wanted to harness the power of words the way that George Bailey wants to lasso the Moon:

What did George want to do with the moon? Who knows. But he wanted it. So is my desire to use words. I don’t know to what purpose.

Now I’m facing an internal crisis: Who am I writing for? What do I want to write? Why am I writing?

“Rebecca’s Writing Practices” is the fifth blog I’ve set up. I’m realizing I don’t have an answer to those questions in terms of this blog.

Two of my blogs are family blogs—one for me to write my life events and thoughts for my family and friends, one to post pictures of my adorable baby boy for his grandmas. These are extensions of my personal journal. I write in my journal as a sort of personal catharsis to the happy and painful events of life. My audience is myself, my family, and my extended family. I learn from my past self when I revisit my journal pages. I feel like this writing has a purpose, and I often feel satisfied with my recordings of my life. It is not polished writing, but it is mine.

Another blog I’ve begun is a reading/book reviews blog for other readers. While I am trying to keep my varied audience of readers in mind, ultimately I write because I feel the need to think critically of the things I read. I studied English in college, and I find myself trying to apply the things I learned about literature to my current reading and succinctly analyze my writing. While my reviews certainly are not A+ term paper material, I feel good about my developing ability to succinctly capture the emotions and themes of the books I’m reading.

My fourth blog is my photography blog. I don’t focus on writing, but rather capturing my memories and emotions through photography. I feel satisfied with my photography, amateur that I am.

That leads me back again to “Rebecca’s Writing Practices.” I realize that, despite what published authors say, I must have an audience in mind when I write. I’m realizing I don’t know my audience, and it’s making it hard to write. What do I want to write? I’m most familiar with personal nonfiction sketches because I’m so used to journaling and blogging. That’s what I began focusing on. I started responding to prompts using the personal experiences that are familiar to me. I want to write fiction, but I always feel frustrated when I do; it is never convincing to me because I’ve never been there. I realize that I don’t need to write for a blog, but I’m struggling to find purpose to my writing when I’m the only one reading it from the hard drive of my computer.

This leads me back to the original question: What brings me to the page (or computer, in my case) in the first place?

I have this longing, an urge, to fill the white screen with my words, with my creativity. I want to be a Creator, through words. But I don’t think that’s enough. I need a reason to write, and I need to have an audience in mind.

I scrawled in five-year-old writing on the cover (The Three Little Pigs) and on the last page (THE END). For the other pages, my mother was my scribe. She wrote my words on ruler-straight lines underneath my crayon illustrations. Then, I took a stapler and bound my first book together. My first experiment with the written word—my written word—was thus published for all to see. Although I simply retold a story, for the first time I had expressed my own creativity through the written word.

Then, in first grade, my teacher gave me lined pages. I wrote my stories carefully on the lines. These stories were no longer simple retellings, but my own creations. The class published them at the elementary school publishing center: plastic comb bindings.

At home in the afternoons, my classmate, neighbor, and friend became my co-writer and illustrator. We sat, side-by-side, at a plastic blue Smurf table. Together, we wrote and illustrated stories set in all times and settings—from orphans in our day to dinosaurs that traveled through space and time. I wrote words. She drew pictures. She wrote words. I drew pictures. We stapled the pages together.

As I moved through school, our Smurf table publishing world came to an end, and the elementary school publishing center was no longer a monthly destination. But my interest in the written word remained at my core. Anytime anything even remotely interesting happened in my family, I produced another issue of the Family Tribune and delivered it to every member of my family and to my grandparents who were far way. I wrote a play and my friends and I acted in it. I wrote stories and half of a novel. Then, come high school and college, I wrote term paper after term paper.

Now I write for myself, I write for my family, and I share my words online. I suppose writing on a webpage is much like stapling my books: it’s not professional, and few will read my words. But the words are mine. As I improve my ability to write, I will better find my voice for expressing my own experiences—whether those experiences focus on travel adventures, nonfiction research, or the creative explorations of my imagination.

Someday, my words will be bound between covers.

Amateur that I am, I know that I am a writer: I have always been a writer.