Sometimes when I’m working with writers, a question comes along that pierces me.

I was leading a group of writers a little while back when one of the participants wrote in the chat space:

“I struggle with making myself write—even a little—when I don’t have something I think is of any value. How do I overcome the need to write something ‘good’ or not write at all?”

That hits hard, probably because I can relate to it. The part that gets me is “I don’t have something I think is of any value.”

I realize this writer is probably referring to a single moment in time when the words or the ideas just aren’t flowing. We’ve all been there.

But this writer is also pointing to a broader problem. Fundamentally, many writers struggle with a sense of worthlessness. We struggle with feeling like we have nothing of value to offer. That thought’s like a daisy-cutter bomb to creative work.

What do we do with it?

Well, first, we need at least to acknowledge the truth that we as people do have value—each of one of us. That is so basic it sounds somewhat ridiculous to say it.

Yet it needs to be said.

You are worth so much. You’re the only you. And if you don’t believe that in any given moment, ask the people around you to remind you, and ‘fake it till you make it’ because it’s true.

From there I have just a few bits of advice.

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

What’s obvious to you is not obvious to others.

Think about this. The Population Reference Bureau estimates 117 billion humans have ever existed—117 billion. Think of all the experiences and stories that make up each and every one of those lives. It’s endless. It’s literally an infinite number of happenings and learnings and livings. And now think of the specific knowledge each person accrues in a life.

You, because of your own set of experiences, know things you take for granted, but these are not things a lot of other people grasp.

What’s needed is a bridge from your mind to others’ minds. Your writing is that bridge. Write, even if what you’re writing seems obvious, because it’s not obvious to others.

Writing’s not the thing, rewriting is.

No less a writer than Ernest Hemingway said, “The only kind of writing is rewriting.” The whole point of writing is not writing, it’s rewriting.

Writing is just something to get through. You have to push through it to get to the real thing.

If you let whatever forces you’re facing, within or without you, to sabotage the writing part, you never get to the rewriting part. And that’s where the juice is.

“Become all flame.”

Ever heard of the Desert Fathers and Mothers? These were people who in the fourth and fifth centuries moved away from the cities to live in the desert, where they could practice their faith in a purer way than was possible in the city. You can think of them as the first Catholic monastics or the harbingers of monasticism.

Their surviving writings are really just scraps, or at least they read that way. Just little snippets of wisdom left behind from these wayfaring souls.

And a common form in these scraps is the Q & A. A younger monk asks an older monk a question, and the older monk answers.

Here’s my favorite:

Abba Lot went to Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace as far as I can, I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?”

Then the old man stood up and stretched his hands toward heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”

Abba Joseph understood the idea of different planes of existence. All of them have their place. But sometimes, like the old man, we have to rise above our lesser voices.

Sometimes we get so bogged down by our need to write something good we forget the first obligation of any writer. It is not to write something good; it is to write. Rise above. Become all flame.

Let us begin . . .

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