Those Beautiful, Beautiful Words – Eva Marie Everson

If I could tell you one thing, and only one thing, it would be this: enjoy the writing now … before the contracts. Before the deadlines. Before the marketing and the interviews and the networking. Enjoy the writing. Cherish it. Throw words on paper, then delete the ones you don’t like so much and then go back and re-write them, this time choosing them carefully.

Write every day. Make a date. Set a time. Pour yourself a cup of hot coffee or tea or a glass of lemonade. Whatever floats your boat. Light a candle. Put on some mood music. Find your muse.

Wear slippers and pajamas. Wear diamonds and pearls. It really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you write. And that you enjoy it.

Tell a story for the sake of telling a story and not because you signed a dotted line at the end of a contract. Or write what’s on your heart and in your mind—or it is in your heart and on your mind? It really doesn’t matter. Just write it. Put on paper what you know that you know that you know … and it doesn’t matter if you alone read it … or your mother … or your son … or your next door neighbor who digs around in her garden for fun.

Just write it.

Print it out and put it in a shoe box. Or save it on a thumb drive. Submit it, don’t submit it. It doesn’t matter. What matters right now is that you are writing. You are honing your craft. You are taking this marvelous, marvelous gift from God and you are reveling in it.

And, one day, if you are lucky or unlucky (according to how you look at it), you’ll see your words between the front and back covers … and you’ll wonder why you didn’t enjoy it more when you wrote for the sake of the words.

Those beautiful, beautiful words …