Sometimes my words are not enough. Hollow, ringing, ostentatious, flippant, brassy. My paper becomes a snarl of scribbles, scratched-out lines, fragments, disconnected by blank spaces.
Fortunately, my words are are not the only ones. When they are not enough, I find friends, mentors, guides, and inspirations in the writing of others who say what I cannot. Words surround me... a web... a wind... an embrace... a circle of words all around. When I'm not writing, I'm reading. I learn from it all; the bad, the good, the great.
It is my belief that all writers are other writers' guides. There is no such thing as a solitary writer. We are all affected by each other... that is how writing works. Find me a writer who doesn't read. More specifically, I have a hard time finding a writer who hasn't been moved to write by something they read. Endless circle. A pattern of writers making writers.
Seldom do writers realize the worth of their own words. Louisa May Alcott nearly burned Little Women. Joe Shuster (original Superman creator) did burn the first Superman story. Robert Lewis Stevenson never made more than 14 pounds off of Treasure Island, which is now sprinkled like salt over the face of the planet and is one of the best known stories ever told. Tolkien held onto the beautiful, majestic, intricately detailed Silmarillion until his death believing that somehow he would be able to make it better. And you know what? He probably could have. But millions of people have read it just the way it is and this it perfect.
So even when your words seem empty, continue. Even when you're not certain who will read them, continue. When you don't know if it is finished, continue.
For we are all just writers and readers in the end; the audience and the storyteller. And all of us, every one, loves a good story.
