The Organizing Principle

Think about all that you love. Think about the people you’ve loved. Think about the books you’ve loved to read and the stories you’ve loved to write. Think about the games you’ve loved play, the meals you’ve loved to cook, the jokes you’ve loved to share. Who chose these thing for you to love? It wasn’t you, was it? Did you choose to love the people you love, or did you observe that you love them and then choose to follow that love? Did you choose to love the movies you’ve seen or the books you’ve read? Indeed you have not. The power of love comes from its guiding impulse, offering us its effortless path, along which we may surrender the illusion that we must build our world and find the place for every stick and stone along the way.

For writers, love is our first and best teacher. We say, “Write what you love,” meaning, give over to the Organizing Principle of Love. There are limitless stories that could be told, all of them worth telling by someone. Love provides the focus for your work, and teaches us to find its current in ourselves. Within the current is effortlessness; outside of it, we feel the dizzying struggle of trying to make what was never ours to make.

Write Within Yourself: An Author's Companion. "A book to keep nearby whenever your writer's spirit needs feeding." Deb Caletti.

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