The Single-Most Important Quality to Have as a Writer

I am going to reveal the single-most quality that every writer needs to have.  But before I do that, I’ll first need to explain why:

Writing is not an easy path for me.  I struggle with having the time to write, finding the right words, or wondering if anyone is even listening at all.

Other times I freak the hell out thinking about the fact that someone WILL read my words.  They are permanent, even if you click the delete button later.  Words remain inside those who absorbed them long after they were said.  Some of my words can never be taken back.  Many times my words have been twisted beyond repair.

Other times my words were all someone had.  Sometimes those words have even saved lives, or at the very least given someone hope.

The pressure of being responsible for finding the right words, hoping they find the right people, at the right time, and in the right place, is profound.

Ahhhh!  Da PRESSURE!!!

Right about the time I have an apoplectic fit thinking I am just wasting my time, or wasting the time of anyone who comes to this blog, I neurotically check my subscriber count and find it went up, or I check my Alexa ranking and find that out of 156+ million public blogs on the internet (this was counted in 2011 — and that is not counting static websites or private blogs, which amount to 555 million in all!) I am stunned to find that this very blog is ranked within the top 130,000 blog sites in the US, or I get multiple offers in the same week to write some more (and really-and-truly get paid for it).  At this point I am not sure whether I should laugh or cry.  Instead, I pop another blood pressure pill and wonder if this is going to end up on an episode of Punk’d.

The truth is, I find that numbers really don’t matter at all.  All I know is I am on the right path when someone outright says:

“Your words matter to me.  Keep writing.”

Then I become incredibly thankful and humbled.

As my readership grows I get more and more nervous, yes…but I also get more and more motivated to be the best writer I can be.  Sometimes I hit my mark, other times not so much.  But, I am learning.

So why am I so surprised and why do I even try?

I honestly never set out to be a writer.  I enrolled in an English class as an elective in high school because I knew I needed that class period to sleep.  I had fulfilled all my core credits by my senior year, taking advanced placement courses the entire time.  By the time my senior year commenced, my full-time job took precedence over the half-day course load of electives I needed to fulfill.  I didn’t care about my GPA (which was surprisingly decent in the end).  All I knew as I worked my 60 hours a week (at minimum wage) as a high-school student from modest means was this:  I couldn’t afford to go to college anyway.

I distinctly remember taking my English final exam on one of those Scantron sheets, carefully filling in the bubbles to spell out a gratuitous message to my teacher: 

Thanks for the sleep!

She just shook her head as I handed it in and wished me luck as I walked out the door.

As luck would have it, I married a man in the military.  This brought me some educational benefits, but they didn’t go far when I transferred from college to college over the course of many military moves.  And, as luck would have it, I had to quit school when my husband was injured so I could focus on his recovery.  Now I owe a hella lot of money for a hodge-podge of college courses that never matriculated into anything.

As I lived the life that I’ve lived, I have come to a final conclusion:  I just know there is a story inside me that needs to be told, and to hell with needing an MFA in order to share it!

So what makes me think I am, or can be, a writer?

Writers have all sorts of qualities, but as promised, (did I mention that brevity is not my forte?) I am going to share the most important one:

FAITH

Faith doesn’t mean you never have doubts.  Faith means you wrestle with those doubts like you’d wrestle with an alligator, and you survive.

Faith doesn’t mean you never give up.  Faith means you will fall down again and again, but you get up afterwards and brush yourself off.

Faith also means…

…knowing that you have something worth saying, and worth sharing

…you are brave enough to make it happen (even if you are scared out of your mind)

…you aren’t wasting your time (or that of anyone else)

…you are making progress, even if it is only one step back and two steps forward

…you understand you can’t please everyone all of the time, and it will still be okay

…receiving criticism might actually mean you are doing something right

….you inherently know these realizations will continue to arrive in the form of an epiphany when you least expect it, and

…that someone, somewhere, will be impacted by your words.  Positively.

I can’t promise you that the writing path is an easy one, but I can tell you it’s worth packing a suitcase to take along with you while you try.  This is a journey worth traveling.

If you want to be a writer, or your life doesn’t seem complete unless you write, or if you find yourself staying up until 2:30am to write or, likewise, waking up at 4am to write, you already have all the faith you need.

This blog is brought to you by something SO full of so much awesomeness it cannot be contained.  It’s called FAITH.  That, my wonderful friends, is what keeps me writing.

I’ll be honest — I didn’t know what I wanted to say in today’s post.  All I knew is I needed to write, and hopefully someone needed to hear what I had to say.

Thanks for being such wonderful readers.  I am humbled and incredibly blessed to have you in my life.

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