High Calling Blogs book club:

The Right to Write

~An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life~

by Julia Cameron

Julia Cameron asks, "Where do we get the idea that putting words on paper is so dangerous and so difficult?"

In my fear of knowing what to say and what not to say, these words inspire me to give away my written self. For years, I have regarded myself as a 'closet writer.' Privately jotting down snippets of life whenever the words spilled out. Often recording my thoughts, hopes, and dreams on paper through personal prose. But exposing my inner pieces and parts for all to see ~ naked ~ is too daunting. Sometimes I can hardly speak the words, let alone put pen to paper disclosing them to YOU, the world.

Yet, I know if I don't let the words escape ~ they will gush forth from me in other ways. So with pen and paper I release them and without much effort they slide onto the written page. The pages are assembled and bound in journals of all shapes and sizes as secretive volumes that hold my most meaningful mental dialogues. They line my shelves and fill the crevices of my rooms in quiet secret storage ~ safe and secure.

Maybe I have accepted the 'seriousness' of the page and 'rules' for writing that Cameron speaks of where every word becomes 'a commitment and a matter of intense scrutiny.' I need to write, extracting the words from within, without fear of exposure.

I will try ~