The Work of Spiders and a Pep Talk

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Yes, it's only the second week of class, but it's never too soon for a pep talk.

In Class 1, we warned you that you might feel anxious and full of self doubt as you posted your first workshop piece. We encouraged you to fire the critic that tries to convince you that you have noting important to say or no good stories to tell or that only geniuses write stories.

You've heard the old saying: genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

One percent inspiration.

Now think about this: Who doesn’t have that one percent?

The difference between those people who say they want to write and those who do write is this: the ability to work up a sweat. Or, as Jane Yolen, author of over three hundred published books says, butt time. It’s putting your butt in a chair and working. (We writers call it BIC -- butt in chair.)

The difference is the willingness to develop and hone your craft.

Many of you have been told that writing is a gift.  We hear about gifted writers all the time. You hear people say, oh, she’s so creative, as if that's all it takes to write a book.

Being creative is more than inspiration and good ideas.

In order to be creative, you have to create something. Publishing doesn't make you a writer; writing makes you a writer.

Newbery-winning author Katherine Paterson says that the two creatures to be most pitied are the spider and the novelist because both of their lives hang by a thread spun out of their own guts.

That’s what writers do: we spin a story out of our guts. 

This is not a career for the gutless.

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