This is great article, and I totally endorse what the author is saying -- although I would leave you with a word of warning: Don't write simply because you want to "compete" or be like the other great authors out there. Several years ago when I was in high school I came across pg's essays and was bedazzled by it, and wanted to write articles like that of my own. (But I never got around to it.)
The fact was, I didn't have anything really that great to say. So even if I had written stuff back then, I don't know if it would have enriched the lives of others as much as the writings of certain other people have.
Hm, whatever. Just my 2 cents. I'm probably wrong.
My students often told me they didn't have anything to say. They were silent. Empty. They felt anxiety. Panic. Terror. 'Good' I'd answer. 'You are a writer. You are at the place from which writing comes.'
-- Donald Murray in Shoptalk
A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
-- Thomas Mann
A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them.
-- William Stafford
You have to sink down to a level of hopelessness and desperation to find the book that you can write.
Utterly sterling selection of quotes there. The Stafford one resonates with me the most personally – I can't count the number of times I've realized a greater subtlety and complexity to my position on something after I've written a paragraph or so on it.
The fact was, I didn't have anything really that great to say. So even if I had written stuff back then, I don't know if it would have enriched the lives of others as much as the writings of certain other people have.
Hm, whatever. Just my 2 cents. I'm probably wrong.