Yes, it’s true: I am not a morning person, but I drink a cup of joe between the hours of 1400 and 1600 (that’s 2-4PM for those not aware of 24 hour clocks). It is cheap instant coffee and masked with sugar and creamer, as my grandfather preferred it. I don’t bother with it in the morning as I rarely, if ever, want to get out of bed for anything. Nonetheless, I do make an effort to do so because I like to keep a schedule going with my exercise, which in this time of year means weights and treadmills. Not as entertaining as bicycles for me, but my lungs don’t hold up too well to the typical midwest winter temperatures. No, mornings are not for me, even when I got up at ~0500 (5AM) working for Club Fed. Nothing much happened before 0900 (9AM; do I have to keep doing this?) so even arriving at 0630 left me with a lot of downtime. Did I mention how much I hate getting up in the morning?
So, American Thanksgiving has come and went. I went to my sister’s for this event and figured it would probably be the usual (sit in a corner, play inside my head, nobody wants to try to communicate with the deaf guy, etc.) but one of my sister’s friends asked me about writing books. Sure, I write. I mean, I’m not exactly a best-selling author or a successful writer or even a good one, but I write. She’s got lots of good ideas and things she would like to write, but she asked if I would be willing to write it for her. Well, yeah, I could, but why can’t she? She doesn’t know how, she says. It’s easy; just start somewhere. A conversation. An event. A description. Anywhere. Anything. It isn’t that hard. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to start.
Don’t be afraid to write something. It doesn’t matter if it gets done in 5 days, 5 months, or 5 years; it doesn’t have to be a literary masterpiece; it doesn’t have to be something everyone enjoys; it doesn’t have to be a smash hit and commercial success. Just write and the rest will take care of itself. Imagine a conversation between two characters, describe a place in as many words as you can think of, think of how you could make a clockwork nuclear bomb work write out the actions it takes for a watch to change the second hand on the clock face. It doesn’t have to be perfect out of the gate and it may never become what you imagined it to be — but you’ll never know if you don’t try. Don’t worry about whether or not your voice will be heard, or even if it can be heard: all that matters is whether or not you spoke to begin with.