A Manifesto.

Happy Sunday – hope wherever you are you’re having a good day. I’m listening to Corinne Bailey Rae on my iPhone (with a neckloop) and pondering the next chapter I’m going to write for the NaNoWriMo novel. Anyway, I’m also reading @WriMo: A 30 Day Survival Guide for Writers by Kevin Kaiser. Last year my companion was No Plot, No Problem by Chris Baty – definitely the ultimate survival guide during November. However, Kevin Kaiser’s book is a day by day companion – which is something I need right now, since you all know how much I’m having to push through the resistance this year. I wanted to re-post his Manifesto, which he wants people to share and feel empowered by. It definitely helped me today. A lot of the time, we writers and artists need to remember who we are and why we’re doing this.

I AM A WRITER.

I am an original with something powerful to say to the world. If I choose silence, no one will speak up for me because no one else can. My voice is irreplaceable. 

I don’t need permission to create.  No one does. My life will never be built on what I’m going to do.

Books don’t write themselves. There is no trying, only doing. 

Looking at the world isn’t the same as seeing it. Pay attention. Be curious. Take notes. 

There’s no instruction manual for what I want to do and how I want to do it. My time is now. It always has been. In a blink of an eye “someday” will become yesterday. Life is here. 

There is a place where the world and my soul intersect. That’s where my audience lives. If I try to speak to everyone I’ll end up speaking to no one. 

Two questions drive all discovery: “What if?” and “Why not?” Ask them often. 

No one owes me anything. The mark I leave today is up to me.

Finishing is better than starting and talk is the cheapest thing on earth. 

Today, I’ll take chances like vitamins, see what happens if I go just one more mile, push myself to do what only I can because it’s who I am and what I do.

I AM A WRITER. 

~ Kevin Kaiser. (A Storyseller Manifesto.)