A Writer’s Perspective

"If you want to be a writer, you have to write every day." - Walter Mosley

Merriam-Webster defines a writer as one that writes or someone who has written something. To be a writer, as award-winning novelist Walter Mosley explains, is to write every day.

To write a novel Mosley says that "the only thing that matters is that you write, write, write" (Mosley, 2000). It doesn't matter if what you write is not good or makes sense, just write.

Mosley compares writing to some of life's activities that are daily events; you don't skip or forget to do these things.

"The consistency, the monotony, the certainty, all vagaries and passions are covered by this daily reoccurrence" (Mosley, 2000).

Another point that Mosley discusses in his writing process is how quickly and easily ideas form and disappear. As a creative person I understand how this impacts the process of creating or writing. I get a million ideas a day that could be harnessed if I would take the time to write them down. Sadly, 99.9% of my ideas are lost because I don't write daily.

"Our most precious ability, the knack of creation, is also our most fleeting resource. What might be fades in the world of necessity" (Mosley, 2000).

Over the course of this class my thinking has changed on the writer's perspective in the social media environment. Social media gives writers the opportunity to expand on and explain their creativity in ways that didn't exist before. It provides an opportunity for writers to give the back-story or detail where some of the ideas came from. Social media also can give help to the creative process by providing starting points or inspirations from the experiences of others; it's learning about life in a new way.

"...creation, like life, is always slipping away from you" (Mosley, 2000).


References
Mosley, W. (2000, July 3). Walter Mosley: For Authors, Fragile Ideas Need Loving. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/070300mosley-writing.html