Tuesday's Inspiration - Urge to Write via Sue Grafton #MFRWauthor #inspiration #SueGrafton

Any time I meet people and tell them I'm an author, almost all of them say that someday they would like to write a book. Not all of them do, though lately more people are entering the realms of published author. Self-publishing and small presses with electronic books have pushed people to write.  Something I read in an essay by Sue Grafton made me think about what might be missing that keeps these people who say someday I'll write a book from penning that book.

"First of all, there is the urge to create, the need that comes to us from some formless state, something stirring that will not let us rest." This urge has led Ms. Grafton to write a wonderful set of mysteries.

Has it led you into writing down word after word until you have a story? It has me. I know I feel uncomfortable if too many days pass without my working on a current story. This itch has been in my life for a very long time. From sitting on the porch with friends years ago and making up stories, or putting on plays in a neighbor's garage telling stories had been with me. Of all those story tellers I'm the only one who went on to write books. I often wonder why I couldn't do anything but scratch that itch and put word after word on paper. How about you? Did you have a group of storytelling friends? Did any of them go on to write, too?

Like Ms. Grafton, I also became a reader and explored a lot of interesting and strange works of fact and fiction. Then came the day when I had to try. High school, and I started a lot of books and worked on one and then another. Went to a hospital nursing course. My mother cleaned out my room and threw all those budding stories away. But the itch never stopped. Finally I began to painfully start to write. My care studies became, not works of fiction though sometimes the instructors wondered, but delving into more than the stated facts of their case. I looked at the families and their reaction to the conditions. I even went to visit these people in their homes and added a bit of setting to the stories. This has definitely helped me when I write a story with a medical background.

How about you? Has the itch remained and do you scratch it every time you sit down to write.