Are you a reader? Are you a writer? Are you both?
I’m both! I love words, pure and simple. I love reading them, watching them dance across the page, conjuring images in my mind. I love writing them, ideas from my mind flowing through me, out of my fingers onto the page!
How about you? If you are a writer, I’m pretty sure that you are a reader too. I think it would be impossible to be a writer if you didn’t love reading, but maybe I’m wrong. Let me know if you write but don’t read.
It doesn’t always follow the other way round, though, does it? Plenty of people read but don’t write. Why is that, I wonder. I think that perhaps we are told there are so many rules about writing, spelling, and grammar, and maybe at school we weren’t very good at them, so our confidence got knocked. Perhaps we see authors as special, extra-talented people who get chosen by publishers to have their words read.
I’d like to smash both those stereotypes, myth-busting time! I am rubbish at spelling, and well grammar, lots of those rules fly by me when I am mid flow, and the words are coming thick and fast. I’m a great writer, a published author, and I don’t know, or care what a fronted adverbial is! There, I said it. I only know how to spell necessary because I remember ‘It is necessary for a shirt to have one collar and two sleeves.
In my work as a writing coach, I believe that with the right support and a willingness to learn, anyone can write. I work with writers who have dyslexia and additional learning needs, and they are fabulous storytellers. Yes, they will need some help with the conventions of the written language, but even the most accomplished of writers have a team behind them.
I enlist others to help me write, my lovely hubby reads my words first as he is fab at spelling, grammar, and all that shizzazle. I know some great editors and wordsmiths who can help me and the folks in my membership ‘The Write Tribe’ are a great support to each other.
And with self-publishing now an option, it has opened up the publishing world for many ordinary, everyday folk of all ages. I was at a street party in London a few years ago and met a lovely older lady who had just self-published a book. We sat and chatted about books, reading, and writing for hours. I have had clients in their 70s who are publishing their first book.
If you have a yearning to tell a tale, to bring a book to life, to share your story, then do it. Don’t let self-limiting beliefs keep you from being a reader; believe in yourself and be a writer too! Reach out, find your tribe, surround yourself with writers who value collaboration, not competition, and be the writer you deserve to be.
This was written by our contributing writer, Claire Walsh-Jones.
Image Source: Unsplash, Huzefa Pithawala
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