There are times when one feels the urge to write but there is a lack of confidence or response from friends or family. It is to these new or 'secret' writers that I appeal, please don't stop. We need your voices, your written words, your views from the perspective of your imagination.
I didn't have this reaction with my own "tribe" so I find it difficult when other writers tell me that their friends or family are non-reactive, not interested, or worse, extremely critical. I understand that it may be due to many issues: familial fractures, sibling rivalry, parental narcissism, or worse, they simply aren't readers. It's a hard thing to grasp that a family of non-readers could spawn a literary genius in their midst, but it does happen quite a lot.
I've found many brilliant writers hiding in the shadows of family dysfunctions. They've used writing as a way to give voice to their pain, anxiety, depression or grief. While others have used it as an escape route from the dull, daily life, others have ventured into the land of their own imagination to work out problems in a safe, and healthy, way.
Even though my writing was embraced and accepted by my family, others haven't had that opportunity and it is to them that I appeal --- Please keep writing. I will read your work, I will help you edit your work. I believe every writer has something to say. It may not be good, well-written, grammatically correct, or even palatable, but it's your voice and someone should hear it through the words on a page and I offer my eyes to "hear" your voice.
I believe that all of those people who have that 'need' to write because they can't help themselves to do anything but to write, they should. There is something within them that needs expression. Some writers have one book within them, some have no books, but blogs, journals, short stories, poetry, diaries, essays, and simply thoughts that need expression.
I believe we will always need writers to shake and rattle the cages of conformist thinking, either to support the majority or rebel against it. I'm a strong believer against censorship of our libraries and books in general. I read "Fahrenheit 451" in school and the idea that a society would ever ban a book, or burn them, terrified me. How else are we to discover new ideas that might save our society? How else can we give ourselves a break from the horrors of our daily lives and the world around us when it gets to be too much. (Other than prayer and I do believe in that, too.)
“No thing under the sun is new” (Ecclesiastes 1:9) hints that all ideas, thoughts, etc., have already been thought, written, spoken, etc., but we can find ways to present them and make them understandable to a whole new generation who hasn't yet heard, read, thought, or seen them. We need, as a society, to rekindle our best ideas and concepts. We need to rewrite some of our histories to better explore the truth of our past events so that all peoples are represented, not just the winners.
I hope you'll join us here to share your ideas too. I'd love to hear from you in comments, or if you'd feel more comfortable, drop me an email (see Contact page.) You may also follow me on Facebook. (Just look for Faintly Macabre.)
Until then, write on!
~Faintly~
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