1. July. 2008 (original pub. date)
So, I was reading Ebony Magazine (yes, I said Ebony) while I was at my grandmother’s house a few months ago, when I came across an interview with Pearl Cleage who offers some great advice for writers. Even though I felt called out for my general trifling-ness about my own writing (and especially how I have neglected this blog), I really needed it hear it (yes, I said hear). Maybe you do, too.
EBONY: What advice do you have for writers starting out?
CLEAGE: My advice to new writers is to take their own work seriously enough to do it every day. All of us aren’t lucky enough to be able to write full time, especially at first, but you have to be able to put some words on paper every day. I tell writers to think of it as if they were ballet dancers or trumpet players. Nobody thought Miles Davis got that good by waking up every day or so and playing a few notes on a trumpet when he didn’t have anything better to do. Nobody gets to be a prima ballerina without going to class every day and working that body! It’s the same with writing. You have to get comfortable with the part of your brain that wants to tell stories. A friend of mine, also a writer, said once, “What you have to do is find out what makes you comfortable and then you’ll tell everything you know.” She was right, and that process takes time. If it means getting up a few hours early so you can write before you go to work, or staying up late so you can write once your house has settled down. That is a routine that you have to develop and stick with it. Nobody ever gives anybody permission to be a writer. We have to believe in ourselves and do the work that is required to make it real.
