You can read texts and suggestions on how to write till your brain explodes, and not ever learn anything about writing. Writing is not something someone teaches you to do. You can learn about language, but writing is a gift.

Different people on earth have been given different gifts. Whether you accept it or not, God is the giver. We are the receivers.

At Christmas, a friend may have been given a brand new bike while you got a pair of skates. You may covet and desire the bike, but it does not belong to you. You have skates. Enjoy and use them.

Many seek to write, but writing was not meant for them. Maybe they have a gift for painting, for sculpture, for charity, for entropy, or whatever, but they were just not meant to write. Too often, they will write what they think the world wants to hear, cheapening the writing process and being false to their values.

I accept the Bible as the Word of God. Even if you don’t, you will realize it is a book of great Wisdom. My favorite Bible passage is Ephesians 2:10:

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

The root word from which we derive “workmanship” is the word meaning “poem.” What this verse says is that we all fit together as part of God’s Poem.

A poem may have a strict rhyme or meter, be extremely long, be short and brief, or free, with no particular scheme. But, all the lines work together for a purpose. Some lines rhyme, some lines compliment other lines. Separately, they may mean nothing. Together, they work towards a purpose.

For instance, three writers fitly come together, each with a line:

Mary had a little lamb

It’s fleece was white as snow

And everywhere that Mary went

Someone who is not a writer might add: “Sunshine spread like wildflowers.”

The writer would add, “The lamb was sure to go!”

This is a good illustration of what writers do. We come from different directions.

We have different purposes. We have different styles. But, our words join together as examples of this realm of writing.

If someone not meant to be a writer is just playing with words, the structure is weakened. Be sure you were meant to write.

Accept it or not, The Lord works within us all and directs us to do certain things. I could never design a building, or fly a fighter jet, but I feel I could write a 30,000 word essay if I had to.

The Lord gives us this inner desire to write. Most writers will never earn fame or fortune. But, a man’s gift may also bring him before great men.

Seek the reward, and you cheapen your gift.

Use the gift and that inner satisfaction will tell you that you are doing what you were meant to do.

If you can take a long vacation from writing, and feel no inner tumult, you probably weren’t meant for writing.

It’s a compulsion. You see things as a writer. You hear things as a writer.

It consumes your sleep. It demands your waking hours.

And you overcome your ego and learn from the words and writings of others, as you continue with your inner urge to write, write, write.