Writing is no easy task. You sit down to a blank page while your thoughts are in a tangled knot and try to pull one strand at a time out onto the page. Word choice, punctuation, anecdotes, timing — they all matter to make your story pop the way you want. One misplaced sentence or thoughtless word can clip your carefully pulled string, leaving you with two raw and broken thoughts to clumsily tie together.

I once read that amateur writers write when they are inspired, but professional writers write even when they aren’t. That must be true. I want to live up to that name, Writer, but I worry of falling short of it. Does any writer ever feel their work is good enough? Clear enough? Inspiring enough? Real enough? True enough? The more I write the more I am plagued with doubts about the legitimacy of spending every morning at my computer, sometimes typing out thoughts without a clear understanding of where my words will end up.

However,  another writer has also said, “Stories are our prayers. Write and edit them with due reverence, even when the stories themselves are irreverent. Stories are parables. Write and edit and tell yours with meaning, so each tale stands in for a larger message, each story a guidepost on our collective journey. Stories are our history. Write and edit and tell yours with accuracy and understanding and context and with unwavering devotion to the truth…. Stories are our soul. Write and edit and tell yours with your whole selves. Tell them as if they are all that matters. It matters that you do it as if that’s all there is.” (Pulitzer Prize winner, Jacqui Banaszynksi)

The reason I return each morning to my computer, however tired I may be, is that I believe the above is true. I believe stories have the power to change our world. I have seen this time and time again, from testimonies of how a friend’s world was changed by an act of faith to the stories of refugees fleeing darkness for just a glimpse of some light. Stories matter. They give us meaning when all we seem to have is a tangled up knot of our experiences. They act as a compass in this wild, mapless life.

Stories matter deeply to me, and expressing them through writing seems to be one of the clearest way I can tell mine. So even when I don’t see the immediate fruit of my labor, I will continue to write so that I might grow and improve to tell my story to the best of my ability. The words I have are ones I pray bring hope and remind others of that sometimes forgotten spark of joy life holds for us. After all, no one else can express the words I have inside. The same is true for the words inside of you. No one else can tell the world how you see it, so why not you?

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