Writing Can Give You True Freedom

It has been said so much, but the cliché "Life is what we make it" applies to writing too. There is a freedom in putting words to the page, on a typewriter, in a notebook, or on a laptop computer. Writing is truly what me make it; that is what defines writing. We work at it under the trees of our backyard, think on it at work, and pull together all these floating ideas that only make sense to us. When we try and tell them to others they do not have a clue. So, a definition of writing should have this: It is key to the freedom of expression.

We work at our desks perhaps five days a week, maybe seven, or just one. We have to write to keep the thoughts at bay, and to see light in things that are dark. We are depressed; we write. We are happy; we write. We are sick of our job, so we quit, and take up a risky trade that has ample rewards if done in the right proportions.

Let me offer an example. I work all day on this craft. Pulling together these sentences that sometimes never come out right. I work because I am free to do so. I write because it is like talking to myself in a healthy fashion.

The short story can come to us after a conversation. The novel after living a life. The article after experiencing life in a different way. We work and soon the just rewards come our way. We can be sixty when we are first publish. We can write since we are ten. What matters is remembering that all writers are free to quit when they want. We can work to our last days or quit the first year.

Artistic expression is not about definitions but about developing a way to say things to others. We can repeat the same story over and over; all that matters is we continue to tell it. Giving up is the bane of writers, and it affect us for a few simple reasons. We have the doubts. We forget we are free to do it. And we forget taking a week or two off is dangerous for our creativity.

I am sitting at a desk that is perhaps too cheap. I have piles of papers laying in odd arrangements across my desk. I have bills to pay. No children to feed. But I find that writing is still a freedom that I enjoy to much to quit. There may come a day to retire, but this is not lifting one hundred pound bags of salt or corn. As long as I have my fingers, eyes, and thought processes I can write.

Writing will always be a key ingredient in expression. We must remember to keep our mind dreaming, and that writing is a freedom some cultures do not have.