Zen in the Art of Writing

I want to be a better writer. It’s a sentence I didn’t know I wanted to say until I started reading a book that truly spoke to me, that truly inspired me. That made me think, whoa, I want to write like that.

In the back of my mind, I’ve always known that my writing isn’t the best. It’s fine, passable even, and I’ve been content with that. I can routinely chug along and write exactly what I need to, when I need to. It’s how I passed through school. But there have been times when I’m writing, and it feels as if I’m wading through a chest high swamp while my head keeps getting thwacked by damp leaves and rubbery tree branches. Where I lose my train of thought half a dozen times per sentence. It’s brutal. I don’t like those times.

But there’ve also been times, though not as many, when I’ve found the spark. When pen and paper (or keyboard and monitor) combine and are set ablaze with words and ideas that are thrown from my hands like wood into a raging fire. I like those times. I want more of those times.

Until I started reading Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing, I was okay with sometimes struggling through the swamp. But now, now I want my words to catch fire, my ideas to reach the stars. I created this website to practice writing, to practice putting ideas onto a page, to practice crafting a story. I want to inspire. I want to be inspired. But more importantly I want people to think, whoa, I want to write like that.

I want to be a writer.