I remember the day I became a writer. It was 1987 and I was 13 years old. I received a package in the mail from my Aunt Jan – an amazing artist – and inside was a book: Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg.

I’d always wanted to be a writer, but it felt like such an impossible goal. I’d started more diaries than I could count but I’d stop writing after a few days, forget about it and then find it again months later when I was cleaning my room. I’d rip out whatever pages I'd written – because real writers wrote each and every day – and I’d start again, vowing to do better. I wanted to do it “right.”

Writing Down the Bones changed that for me. It gave me permission to lighten up, to stop being so hard on myself and to just write.

I found a royal blue Mead spiral notebook (single subject, college ruled) and decided that instead of forcing myself to write every day, I’d write when I felt like it. (I guess I was already subscribing to reverse psychology?) And with that I began what has turned into a two decade habit of writing almost every day.

I just pulled down my copy of Writing Down the Bones again and remembered why it was such a catalyst. Here is some of what Goldberg had to say about writing:

• Writers, when they write, need to approach things for the first time each time.
• There is no separation between writing, life, and the mind.
• Learn to trust the force of your own voice.
• If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.
• Writing is not just writing. It is also having a relationship with other writers.
• Don’t be afraid to answer the questions. You will find endless resources inside yourself. Writing is the act of burning through the fog in your mind.
• See revision as “envisioning again.”
• Go a little further. Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of beginning. 

You have to start somewhere. And sometimes it’s best to start again at the beginning. Whether it was someone’s encouraging words or a book you read that inspired you, you have a story to tell. So write.