I love words and writing. Creative words and writing especially. Poems and books and stories and even blog posts, taking real life and writing about it creatively. I love writing it and I love reading it. Creative words are wonderful. But sometimes, I wonder if they really matter.
This morning, 22,000 words into a book that I hope is actually a book one day, I'm asking myself that question. Does it really matter?
Because yes, I love creative words. But they aren't paying my bills yet, they aren't prestigious, they aren't solving a problem. So do they matter? Do anyone's creative words really matter?
I have to believe that the answer is yes.
Because sometimes, the reality of life is hard.
Creative writing isn't pretend. It's taking parts of real life and molding them into magical. It's working through the hard stuff under characters that you pretend aren't you, but you know are, in some small way.
It's taking the best things and the worst things that have ever happened to you and polishing them up or roughening them up and turning them into a story that you're proud of.
It's solving a problem that you'll never really solve, working something out in the process.
It's making words rhyme, because that's something you can do. When you can't find beauty anywhere else, it's making your own. And if you can make the world even just a little bit more beautiful, don't you think that's important?
Your words are important. Whether they are fiction or non-fiction, they are still true. And they are important.
And if you're a writer, they are important because if for nothing else, they make you come alive.
