We all need to dream.
And I’m learning, over and over, how much we need to share our dreams with others.
It can get lonely, dreaming all by myself. When someone else is willing to dream my little dream with me . . . Ah! How that refreshes my soul. How it instills hope into my wilted dream.
Read the RestIf you turn on the TV and listen for an hour, you might conclude that America has lost its freedom. With strong political views on both sides of the fence, it’s difficult to know who’s right. That’s why I try always to do two things: 1) Other than exercising my right to vote, I stay away from the political arena as much as possible. 2) I listen very intently to hear the heartbeat of America. I grew up in the south. We always sang patriotic songs. American the Beautiful, God Bless America and the Star Spangled Banner could always be heard on special occasions. Today, after having spent years on foreign soil, I understand how important those words are. Just to be able to stand in the shower and belt out […]
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I was recently sent a link to a blog post with a request to read through it. As I did, I felt eerily like I was reading someone else’s blog. It sounded suspiciously like the individual had taken on the persona of someone else in my community.
I don’t think this was a ploy to steal someone else’s work. Oh no. It was much more serious than that. This writer was actually being a literary impersonator. They were writing in another person’s voice, other than their own.
I pondered their reasoning for quite some time and the more I wondered about it, I couldn’t help but ask, “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” That’s the only viable explanation I could find for someone not using their own unique—and God given—literary voice.
I know there are many reasons why this happens. Most of those reasons are completely unfounded so I’d like to uproot them for you here, sort of my way of snatching your tongue back from Prissy the feline thief:
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I’ve been around writers for a long time. I’ve met literally thousands of folks who have a desire to become published authors. Interestingly, I’ve met few who actually do. When I was new to the world of authors, I passed it off as extreme competition. After all, there are only so many books that pub houses can send to press in any budget year. Not many manuscripts will be published compared to all the writers out there creating them.
Closer investigation revealed that wasn’t the case with most writers. I discovered many of these writers never actually wrote. They didn’t go through the process of constructing a story, building a plot, sitting with butt in a chair and hammering out word count, rewriting and editing.
In short, many dream, few do.
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