Guest Post: (Poetic) Truths I Have Learned About Writing

Guest Post: (Poetic) Truths I Have Learned About Writing

Guys, I have Yvonne over here today for a guest post. She’s writing about what she learned as a writer and I thought it was so poetic, so beautiful.

Guest Post: (Poetic) Truths I Have Learned About Writing

So, here’s the thing guys…

I have spent years scared of my voice. I spent years wondering: Will I ever write the “Best American Novel” (which was actually on my list of goals as an 8-year-old), will I be happy? Will I be successful? Will I be accepted? Will I be okay?

Until suddenly it clicked.

I said f*** it. Forget it.

As a relatively “new” writer – aka: someone who is finally putting herself out there… Here is what I tell myself, in list form, because making lists is one of my favorite pastimes.

The tiny bits of (perhaps pointless) truth I have learned:

1. You will find your voice. If you haven’t already. And, when you do, that voice, that creature in your head, flowing from your fingers as you type, it is enough (doesn’t matter what anyone else tells you).
2. Whatever you have been through – doesn’t matter what it is (and we’ve all had our shares of good and bad), it is who you are, and what you make of it is what matters. Whatever it is that you have lived, it pulsates in you… it is you, and you are able to tell the story that is knocking at your door, as it needs to be told because It is You.
3. Trust the Muses. Follow them down the rabbit hole, that little tunnel they pushed you into. Them? … they won’t steer you wrong.
4. Create. No matter what. The world needs more good at it. So in other words, it needs more art – doesn’t matter what “kinda art” it is (writing, singing, painting, making jewelry, baking a cake). Just create.
5. Your voice, it matters.
After years of battling my own inner voice – hearing the little demons who pretend to drop by for a cup of sugar, but really are just there to say, “STFU, you suck” – I learned to say: screw it, my voice is different, my voice is me, and that is enough. The muses want me to tell their stories, because of who I am – because of the life I have lived, the voice that is in my mind. And, they want you to tell their stories for the same reasons. Each tiny spark of creativity that is out there is just waiting for the right person to release it into the world. The voices in my (your) head say, “here is a character, a topic, a theme, a note, a world, it needs an outlet”. Learn to say (if you haven’t already), “ya know what, hells yeah.”
So in short, follow it. Follow the world, the music, the cookies, the sculpture, the sweater you knitted, the characters you talk to. Let them take you where they need to go, knowing you are the conduit they picked to tell the “story” the world needs to hear.

Follow your art, listen to it, and create.

We need that, ladies and gents. We need artists to keep us real, to keep us honest. Like I told a girl in high school once, “what the world remembers, once we are long gone… it’s art.” That’s what vibrates through us all as humans, what keeps the human connection, no matter what climate we are living in, art is what pulsates in our veins.

Can’t wait to encounter yours.

– Yvonne Sommer, June 2019

You can find Yvonne on:

Blog: yvonnesommer.blog

Twitter: _Yvonne_Sommer_

Leave a comment if you can relate!