Finding Your Own Way

I’m bothered by this woman’s article on writing.

Her writing lacks something?

Depth.

She doesn’t cry enough, moan enough.

She’s all rigid rules, too much.

Her voice is confidence in need of a broken heart.

Years ago I’d call it jealousy on my own part. These days I feel I’m hearing my own feeling on the matter, the echo of which shouts insincerity.

She’s snarky, condescending at points. That is where I hear her. She’s convincing herself of another’s words and not saying her own.

Such a strong soul. A juggernaut momentum. But she puts speed over sincerity. Distraction over her own worth.

Her intrinsic value could be a great value to me were she to stop convincing herself she believes what she says because that is how you fill a spreadsheet.

And that is most definitely how you check off boxes. List boxes! Boxes on lists!

Helpful, but her lists are too long.

Confession. I don’t do this for pay. I don’t do this for clicks or claps. I’m not the snap quick five thousand words an hour success! Success! Success, you think you need.

I’m the guy that spent a quarter of a century everyday writing and not publishing. Only for me, and I believe most of you, there is no other way that truly feels like being alive.

I recognize the need for craft. I applaud the bite down hard grind teeth grit of most of the articles here, (this was originally made for publication on The Medium Blogging platform), but with each I read I find one quality I’ve not been able to name until now.

Remorse. Something wonderful is missing, some deep down conviction I know we all feel.

Perhaps, it’s a life spent quiet in backgrounds, taking backroads. I thought I would share with you what the heart defines as success and what feeds and fires whatever you decide to call soul.

Systems pat on the back, kick it in the pants, stick it in the plots, each and every article here is on authoring, not writing.

I was compelled to share a defense for the writing life devoid of ambition in the absence of ambition, but ambition is always a voice in each of us.

I want to show the difference, to emphasize the difference, between writing and authoring. In defense of writing: itself.

There is no book on craft, (I have read bookshelves full), that does not sum up something like this: But each of us, in the end has to find our own way, plot and put on our pants one leg at a time. We each alone must find our own way; in the end we each, alone, must find our own way.

Which, we forget is what writing is, and therefore where we should begin.

Writing is finding our own way.

A great definition for the act of writing: Finding your own way.

S.J. Wynn
+he Ghos+