Writer. Contributing Editor at The Discarded Image. Digital Content Strategist. Here's where I publicly explore the books I'm reading, the projects I'm working on, and other current interests. Well Said: In love with writing
Novelist Terrence Cheng on how writing is like being in love, right down to the rejection:
Which is why rejection, particularly in your love life, is good training for being a writer. Because your work, if it’s true, is you—the culmination and symbol of your heart, your passion, your hopes and dreams. Your work is everything you want and need to make things right in the world—it’s what sets you apart from the rest, what makes you believe that all the devotion, dedication, and the grueling brutal daily grind to produce actually means something.
Of course it means something to you, but does it mean something to anyone else? For it to mean something, you want and need that validation from the outside, just like you need someone else to know you are more than just a “nice guy.” You want someone to really know you, to trust in you, to take a risk.
Writing and love are both leaps into the unknown, acts of discipline as much as they are acts of faith. If you are not in love with writing then you shouldn’t write, because without love, you won’t be able to take it. (And I didn’t say in love with your writing—I said in love with writing. There’s a difference.)
Read the rest of his essay in Glimmer Train‘s Bulletin 37.
