"An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.”
I love how Buddha quotes make everything seem simple, pure, and tangible.
For years I wrote down ideas for books, first rough drafts of essays, or really, really long e-mails to friends because my creativity was stifled or misdirected (perhaps both? Yeah, both). I knew I had always wanted to be a writer, but for some reason, I just didn't take myself seriously. My first article was turned down in 2000 by some big woman's magazine, and after that, my creativity turned inward, my ideas and writing stayed locked in my hard drive, safe from exposure and certain ridicule. Come to learn now, that is called "self-sabotage".
However I tripped myself up, I still saw beauty and synchronicity, even (sorry to be cliche here) poetry in everyday, routine acts or "average" things that weren't so "average" at all...the scent of the ocean air, for instance - the way it's described on the label of a candle just doesn't do it justice. Betchya I could write it better. Maybe I will write about it and share it with just my husband or mom, or my best friend who no matter what I write, tells me it's awesome.
So I wrote, wrote some more, read whatever interested me, and let that inspire me. In "Field of Dreams", which our family watches over and over (and every night come late March and early April), Ray Kinsella, Kevin Costner's character, says something about fate calling - and that when it does, the appropriate thing to do is not quibble over details. Isn't that funny? I got a sign from a movie about signs.
What will you do when fate calls? If you love to write, if what inspires you manifests itself onto paper, into a journal, or into a Word file on your computer, keep going. Write until the keys on your keyboard pop off, write like your life will end tomorrow (hopefully not) and you have to "get all of this out". Revise later. Because what comes out of you and into your writing is what you need to know, what you should have said, and most importantly it is told in your voice. No one else can do that but you.
Will it be good? Who knows? Just don't be afraid! And do not quibble over details when fate calls.
Look at how the ink flows languidly out of your pen. Listen to the way the pages flap together in your notebook. Watch how easily the emotions appear as words on your monitor screen, you didn't even know they existed within you.
Isn't that beautiful?
Samantha Gianulis
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