In 1926 A.A. Milne wrote this in the book entitled – Winnie-the-Pooh:
Eeyore was saying to himself, “ This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it.”
When I was a little girl I used to love Winnie-the-Pooh and in particular I cherished the character of Eeyore, with all of his doom and gloom and nailed on tail. There was just something about him that was special and always seemed to catch my attention. Whenever a Winnie-the-Pooh television special would air, I would beg my parents to allow me to stay up late and watch. I loved being transported into the magical world of Pooh, Owl, Piglet and more. As I grew up, something else that I came to love was reading and eventually the art of writing. I can still remember an early Saturday morning when I first recognized that I could read. It was a in a Dr. Suess book that had come home from the school library during my Grade One year. Oh, what a spectacular feeling it was when all of the letters on the page transformed into something that I could truly understand. Letters, which became words suddenly made complete sense to my six-year-old mind. I remember waking my Dad up on that early weekend morning and telling him “I can read; I really can read”. Later, in my elementary school years I became known as the girl who loved to work on school projects that involved writing, especially if they were detailed. Whenever there was an opportunity to dive into something that was of interest to me, I would get lost in my love for whatever I was learning at that moment. How I enjoyed using my writing skills to work on the items that I handed in to my teachers for marking. Often I would challenge myself to write more than anyone else in the class; simply because I so loved the creative process of writing.
With such a love of the written word in my past, it is strange how in recent years I could have somehow lost touch with it. Nevertheless, as I wrote about in an earlier post this week, that is exactly what happened. Luckily though, I have come to recognize that my lack of writing has left a void in my life on many levels.
Last week, I had an email exchange with Chris Brogan, a well-known blogger whom I both respect and appreciate. Chris suggested that I commit to writing 500 words per day for the first six months of 2012 and that in doing so perhaps there might just be a book that could come out of me. I have really thought about his advice and have realized that the suggestion is likely a good one for me to move forward with. While 500 words a day might seem like a lot; the reality is that it is just enough to ensure I focus and really push myself to commit to the process of writing. Is there a book in me? Perhaps. Are there blog posts in me? Definitely. Do I have thoughts to share? For sure. So moving forward, writing is what I will be doing. I won’t always post items daily, but I will write 500 words a day; whenever and however I can. I will work hard to ensure I don’t let excuses get in the way of the process of getting the thoughts out of my head and onto paper (or the computer screen).
Despite my childhood love of Eeyore, I can now say that perhaps he was just a little wrong on one important point. This thing of writing is far more that just silly stuff; there is in fact an awful lot in it.
Do you love to write? How do you make sure that you commit to the process of writing?