Write, Live Long, And Stop Being Afraid
This one’s for you, whoever you are
I was asked to speak at one of my college’s STD events.
This was around Valentine’s Day.
I say it this way to make a point: Sigma Tau Delta (ΣΤΔ), the honor society for English majors, should never be abbreviated.
Stop it.
My job at this event was to say a few encouraging words, then read a chapter from my book, Misbehaving In Maine: 30 Half-Learned Lessons.
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Encouraging Words For Geneva College Sigma Tau Delta Students
Hello.
I’m Dan Williams, an author, illustrator, and Rounder Earther.
Don’t believe that Round Earth bullshit. It’s way rounder than they’re telling you.
Anyway, here’s some life advice for smart people.
If you want to be a writer:
Write every day.
This will force you over or through the obstacle of writing only when you feel like it.
Life isn’t long enough to write only when you feel like it, which is on Halloween and during thunderstorms.
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Also, read almost everything. By “almost,” I mean read everything but crap. Again, life’s too short. You don’t have time for crap. The moment a book becomes a chore because it’s crap, quit that book.
You have my permission.
Also, just because a book is crap doesn’t mean the author isn’t worthy of life. They’re a human being just like you. The only difference is, they write Christian romance novels, and you had better not.
If you really want to be a writer:
You’re going to need to live a long time.
It takes a long time to be the writer you were born to be.
If you want to live a long time:
Avoid meth
and heroin.
Get enough sleep.
Drink water.
Eat greens.
Don’t be angry.
If you have to pick one or the other, meth or heroin, you got yourself into that situation.
I’m not here to solve all your problems for you.
Grow up.
Choose.
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If you want to stop being afraid:
Do the thing that makes you afraid until it’s not scary anymore.
Share your writing with others.
Share it often.
Share your work so often that you’re able to see it as work. Wonderful work, life-giving, so fulfilling, but…
You are not your writing, and your writing is not you.
Writing’s just something you happen to do.
If you do it well, good, but that doesn’t mean you’re worth more than before.
And if you write poorly, that doesn’t mean you’re worthless.
You write because you want to. It’s your delight to do it.
Say this:
“I don’t have to do anything to earn value, Dad. I was born with it.”
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Lastly, if you want to be able to get out of your own way and write as truthfully as possible, and by that I mean beautifully:
Stop taking credit for your intelligence and talent.
Just be grateful. You’ve been blessed with incredible abilities.
Storytelling is about connecting with people. It’s not about showing off intelligence and talent to feed the beast of ego, a beast that tricks you into believing you earned your abilities, invented them, wove them into yourself in God’s laboratory before you were born.
Nope.
Genetics.
Pure gift.
Logically, gratefulness is your only option.
Logically, ego is impossible.
“Okay, so I didn’t choose or earn my natural talents, but I’m the one who refined them!”
“And what did you refine them with?”
“My MIND!”
“Which you designed?”
“Shit.”
Excellent.
With ego out of the way, there’s more room and time for telling good stories.
And fine, I’ll give you the answer:
meth
It offers mind-expanding visions that just might give Christian romance writers the edge and self-awareness they need to stop writing Christian romance.
Thanks be to God.
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Strange and beautiful, just like we like it.