Your True Calling

My earliest memories reveal a fascination with language. Though this passion may have been inborn, I blame the local library. The Multnomah County Public Library, a magnificent three-story building composed of marble floors, granite walls and wrought stone pillars, was built in 1864 and is the oldest public library west of the Mississippi. During my youth, it housed, in addition to ceiling high shelves of books in echoing rooms, a series of open reference stacks. These mysterious, shadowed book aisles were so long that they narrowed toward far away pinpricks of light, like tunnel exits. Here, I happily lost myself in the touch of books, the scent of books, the magnetic pull of well written tales that entranced, as I dreamily drifted from aisle to aisle, with time, unfelt and unnoticed, washing past in an unseen tide. 

            Of course, my first love was a book.

            Was it Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates or The Wind in the Willows; A Little Princess or The Scarlet Pimpernel? No matter. I love them still, and their glorious adventures, humble or noble, still haunt my heart.

            Reading led to writing.

            The lure of writing was far more than the scent of freshly ground pencil lead or the almost painterly look of words on paper. Writing was, and still is, an unconscious, uncontrollable urge, like breathing. If I were to stop writing, I would suffer a very real kind of death. For, writing is my life’s work, my true calling.

             Does that mean I am not a real writer unless my name tops the New York Times Best Sellers List? Some writers believe that. They believe that reputation or publication or money determine wealth. I don’t. Real wealth is the act of writing, the experience of writing, the craft of writing that grows within the soul until it tingles down your fingertips, through your pen and onto the page. Whoever connects the value of writing with fame or fortune, is not a real writer.

            My passion for writing introduced me to the sterling members of the Southern California Writers Association. For the past six years, it has been my privilege to nurture writerly efforts by serving on The SCWA Board, as either the Vice President of Programming or the President, or both. I have received far more than I have given, for which I am grateful.

            Now, stepping out of the limelight, I share this counsel. Write! Write as if your life depended on it…because it does. Write as though generations unborn hunger for your words…because they do. Dismiss all dry, anxious doubts and write! Don’t write to please or provoke. Don’t write for profit or fame. Write to translate your inner fire into language. Write to share the tenderness native to your heart. Write to release your unique wellspring of creativity.

            Write for love…and, love to write!