Sometimes writing can feel like a stumble through the shadows...

You take your truths, your stories and you weave them into word--words you hope will reach across continents, culture, time.  And deliver your message, your meaning to someone you may never meet, speak to or hear from.

We spend so much time in solitude, walking an unfamiliar landscape with little light to guide us.   

We may write and read alone.   But we do it to connect with other people.   

And when we travel too long without answer or feedback, we wonder where we are going...

And we ask ourselves:

• Will anyone understand this?
• Did I make my point?
• Does anyone care?
• Is my voice strong enough to carry my message?
• Am I evolving as a writer...or just moving in circles, making the same missteps again and again?

You're out there, on your own, doing all the right things:

• You've carved out time for a reading habit worthy of a writer,
• You're working on a writing habit too--whether it's chatting in our Book Club on Facebook, writing reviews on Goodreads keeping a journal, writing stories or blog posts.  
• And you're creative with your writing and learning. Connecting your writing and your reading to your life.

These are the first steps--the steps you must take to finding your voice and your confidence as a writer.

No one else can take them for you.

But...

You want to find your voice. And you're busy.

So busy, you don't even want to believe it's possible.  

And maybe you even have this fantasy, where one day you'll wake up with more time than 'to-do.' 

Is it just me? Because I admit it,  I  cling to that fantasy...

The fantasy is more comfortable than admitting the reality:

I've got to make some serious choices to make about how I spend my time.

Here it is, this little fact, irritating us, reminding us of it's presence:

We have to choose. We can't do it all. And we owe it to ourselves to make our time count. 

And we owe it to ourselves to commit to creativity.

Want to sound like yourself when you write? Find a voice that's truly yours?

You'll have to find something else first: The time.

You know that reading books is not an "escape from." 

Reading books is an invitation to...

It's a priceless opportunity to hear many voices, to transcend the barriers of language, culture (even time!) and to understand. 

The beautiful thing is this: 

By reading, by hearing the voices of others, you can find your own voice as well.

We need to talk. 

All that reading we do online, it's changing us.  It's a silent process, more than a decade in the making. 

As reading changes, so does writing, thought, mind...

So let's put our phones down for a minute.  While we're at it, we'll tell Facebook to take a hike...Medium too.  Because this change--nearly imperceptible, scratching at us--it's worth our (undivided) attention.  Even if that attention has become...fleeting.

We can see it in our writing, but it goes deeper: the nature of our thought, our ideas is changing. Writing, in the end, is just thought and language on paper--or on a screen.  

Thought and language...language and writing... all of it jumbled into a black bag with a velvet interior.  Go on, reach in there.  Feel around, try to grasp what you can't see. 

The contents? That ever-changing matter that is as familiar as it is mysterious?

It's just... who we are, after all.  

Set a reading challenge worthy of a writer.

Why? 

Because writers never cease to struggle, as they translate life into language.

Because writers invent themselves with every book adventure and take their language with them.

Because when you read a great book, you are already embarking on the writer's journey.  

Because when you read, you write the story too. 

There is no destination.  

You pick up a book and travel to distant lands and cultures.  You find new homelands that you could never otherwise visit... linger in misty places that exist only in fantasy.  

You take on the lives of your favorite characters, explore their worlds, drink their tea, feel their carpet under your feet.  You know their struggles, their tragedies.

You forge meaning.  

It's the journey of a lifetime.

Ready to go? 

This is the moment where you pack your bags, where we make sure you have everything you need for your journey. 

Everything is new, so don't plan too far ahead.

Focus first on the next few months--the next 1-3 books.  After that, you may not see things the same way anymore.  

You may find you're a different sort of traveler.  

And here are a few more travel tips before you go!

Remember those choose your own adventure books?  

At the end of each chapter, you had to choose between your options: steal a key, go into a cave, return home... it was up to you.  

Your book journey is such an adventure.  

It's also the adventure of a lifetime.

Books are the places you'll go and the people you'll meet on your travel. And each one will leave you a slightly different person. 

Which adventures will you choose?