It is interesting how much one can feel compelled to create something, even when one has no real idea of what it is that they want to create. I was recently gifted a typewriter. Since I received it, it has mostly sat on my desk unused. My goal going forward, my job really, is to fill at least one piece of paper every day. But I’m not really sure what it is I want to say. Is that something in and of itself? Simply expressing the desire of wanting to say something? I’m not convinced that it is.

However, the discussion over what is or isn’t something to say might be. I am held back, often in other arenas of my life outside the creative, by my trepidation to be honest, first in my own thoughts, and especially on the page. What if I don’t like what comes out? What if, even worse yet (at least in my mind), other people don’t like it? That is the beating heart of my issue with writing, or writer’s block. Steven Pressfield would say this is the manifestation of my Resistance. What if it is “wrong?” That other people feel it is “wrong?” I do not trust myself to allow my thoughts and feelings to flow through me; that they will be “good” to begin with; that I can express them properly. But that is the quintessence of the art form that is writing. Be scared, be terrified. But let the words come out. Then mortify yourself again by reading them over.

Be scared, be terrified. But let the words come out.

Yet at that point something spectacular occurs. Those first rough thoughts inform and influence new ones. When written down, they hold this power in an entirely different way than if they were left to swirl in your head. They become solid, something to interact with whose origin is now outside of your mind. The new thoughts that come are both molded by and remold the old ones.

For any of this to work, it all has to be expressed honestly. The first ones might be crap, or they might be genius. The crap will be honest crap, which can be then be reshaped and reconstructed. If it is not honest, it cannot be remade into something less crap. And the genius cannot come when holding back. The first step has to be made with honesty.

In this way writing is alchemical. Pure thought is turned into ideas, which themselves can then be reformed. There is no way of knowing if what is coming will be great or terrible. But you have to keep letting it out. And it has to be honest.

Or else- what really is the point?