Writers Have a Hidden Super-Power

I am here to tell you a secret: Do you know you carry a hidden Super-Power underneath your cloak of shyness? Yes, I can see it. Yes, other writers can see it too. It’s been lying there forever, dormant. Why don’t you release it and see what happens?

As a writer, you have the power to convince. A power to build courage. A power to inspire. A power to change things from the way they are to the way they’d better be and to hold on. And that cloak of shyness is nothing but a STOP sign on your way.

In modern setting, there is hardly a room without words in it. Look around you; what do you see? A bunch of books? A business card lazing on the couch? Post-its on the fridge? Whatever you do, you cannot escape words. Someone on the earth wrote those words. That is the massive power–or better yet Super-Power–of writers who have written something, anything.

A typical day goes with reading a few hundred to thousand words. And if you’re reading a novel, the count-bar is raised. Novels may have 300,000 strokes which bring out shapes that we latter process as “letters”.

A few thousand years ago, the early writers made magic out of thin air. This was the first time they wrote. Can you imagine how life-changing that event was? Perhaps our ancestors got tired of picture-making on walls and dealing with heavy sculptures that they harnessed this innate ability. It is now understood that because writers evolved out of painters and artists, the art of reading evolved in human brain.

Imagine what we would do if the early writers never wrote. Would we still be living in current conditions? Would we have experienced the World Wars? Would we still be as intelligent? As desperate? As passionate?

The trick that writers learnt was the trick or technology of writing. Today, it’s not uncommon to read a dead person’s memoir or advice and there is nothing spooky about it. Of course, the same goes with writings of the living persons. We have the liberty to choose, to indulge into and to enjoy the written art.

For far too long, writers have identified with writing. They’ve called it a curse, a gift, a liability, an elusive mistress, a frustrating endeavour and what not. Can you relate? Whatever it is for you, remember that you have a slick Super-Power ready to work any time you allow it to. Your words will be read in centuries from now, they will influence revolts and new beginnings, they will be loved and swore upon.

Worse, you may not be around to reap the rewards. You will never know what the coming generations will make out of your writing. But that shouldn’t stop you, should it? It didn’t stop our ancestors either.

Of course, not every writing is suited for the current day and hence rejected, but it still is a Super-Power. Perhaps we should store it somewhere as a time-capsule to be opened 100 years from now.

So my question for you: Are you ready to handle this Super-Power? You are, right? Here, then, let me take your cloak of shyness and offer you a comfy writing desk.

Photo by dalechumbley at PhotoRee.com