Miracles and Other Essentials

While preparing this second installment of “The Ready Writer,” something sort of miraculous happened. I wrote a first draft about essentials of the writing life. I then immediately read, for the first time, Stephen King’s penetrating volume On Writing. The points I had just written about were affirmed in the pages of his intimate book. King also uncovered a crucial issue that had eluded me.

I’ve found it vital to purposefully steer clear of every distraction, television being the worst.

King’s affirming words were, “For any writer, but for the beginning writer in particular, it’s wise to eliminate every possible distraction.” And he wrote, “TV…is about the last thing an aspiring writer needs.” I love how King exposes the heart of my own problem with television when he further says, “Reading takes time, and the glass teat takes too much of it.”

The other necessity I had written about in my draft was energizing the flow of creativity by reading.

King wrote, “Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life.” He states plainly, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

Although I am guided by a mountain of instructive books and was invited to write this column, I had secretly longed for a sign that it is not presumptuous of me to publish my journey as a writer. On Writing gave me that sign.

While I read King’s book, I felt as though I was in a sweaty locker room during halftime of the big game of life and best-selling author Stephen King himself was my up-close, personal writing coach. He got right in my face and gave me permission -- urged me -- to gut out this life as a writer, to believe in myself and in the creative gift inside of me. After being on this earth for 47 years, I finally, miraculously comprehend that I am a writer -- this is an essential that I had been missing. Thanks, Coach.

(published December 2005)