If you have been following my posts the last few days you will probably have noticed how many times I’ve referenced Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art. Inside the pages of this book are more profound statements and points of inspiration than any I’ve read in my life. The wisdom he expounds has inspired me to write in ways I never thought I could.
It also led me to do something else I never thought possible: encourage other people to write.
Me, the kid who couldn’t stand to write more than 140 characters in a tweet, now encouraging others to write? Sound a little hypocritical?
Not so fast. While only being at this for a week, I have experienced more growth and gotten more ideas out into the world than I have in the previous 19 years of my life.
A friend of mine has been following my challenge to write every day this month and has remarked about how much joy I’ve taken from it. She showed interest in writing something herself and I wholeheartedly encouraged her to do so.
I challenged her to have a post done in 3 days and to make it about anything she was interested in, two of the things that have helped me so much in my own writing: having a deadline and writing about what gets you excited.
She hasn’t written much since the essays she was forced to in high school, and she would put them off until the last minute because they were about subjects that didn’t exactly inspire her. (Thanks, schools.)
Now that she is in control of what she would write about, other than having a little trouble getting started (who hasn’t?), the words flowed freely for her in a way they never had with the essays she was forced to write.
She had the post written and back to me in one day, not even close to the three I had challenged her with. Amazing, isn’t it? And rather simple: write about what interests you and you’ll actually enjoy it!
I will be challenging her to create more. She has so much untapped potential, as do all of us. To me, there is no better way than writing to get your thoughts, dreams, hopes and ideas out there for yourself and the world to see. For now though, I owe her a book, which was a little extra incentive I added to get the best out of her, and I know what book it’ll be, the one that got me fired up to write, The War of Art.