Creating: Writing Attitude

Own it.

Two little words.

Joanne at Whole Latte Life often talks about owning your passion. Go visit her if you haven't. If you have, go visit again. You'll have fun.

I want to talk about showing that you own the fire that burns inside. Strut your stuff.

When I was a little girl, my mother signed me up for ballet almost as soon as I could walk. Actually she enrolled me because I had such trouble walking - I was a klutz. Or to hear her tell it ... a KLUTZ! Still am, but not quite so bad. Magic happened on the dance floor, and all my klutziness went away. I even showed a little promise. I wanted to be a ballerina, but life had better plans.

I still love dance in all its forms. I even love watching Dancing with the Stars. At the beginning of each season, especially, you can spot the Stars who don't own their performances. They're hesitant. Their faces are stiff, their movements wooden. They are not having fun. The best dancers are not always the most technically perfect. The best dancers are the ones whose movement touches your heart. They own it.

We're writers. We may, from time to time, write in our jammies. With pillow hair. Not caring that dust bunnies have taken control. Just saying this is possible :)

But when we sit down to write, all of our perfectly groomed self needs to go bye-bye. We must open our writing hearts and let the contents flow through our fingers to the screen or the paper. We have to own our words, our characters, our stories. It's our job to make them touch the reader's heart. When we do that, we own it.

Saying and doing live in two different worlds. We can begin by creating a positive attitude within ourselves. And by lots of hard work. We must know every word is the best we can make it. Every character is as fully formed as we can make her. Every story is the right story for that particular character.

We must be willing to share all the feelings and emotions stored away in the nooks and crannies of our hearts and souls. The good, the bad, the ugly. The sad, the funny. The inspired and the bizarre. All of them - without scrimping. For letting the reader empathize with our characters is the movement we create to make our stories touch their hearts. No matter that if doing so scares us silly. It's what shows our readers that we do, indeed, Own It.

How do you show that you own your work?