I’ve been thinking for a long time about doing a workshop on creative writing. One of the first lessons I’d have would be on “just do”. This was brought home forcefully today by a friend of mine. I wonder how many people (including myself) feel the same way as she did, at the beginning of the writing process:
“I’m not a writer. I never have any good thoughts and I’m not creative. But one day I was driving in the rain and I had this thought… and I wrote it down.”
“What was amazing to me is that I even wrote it down, that I thought it good enough to write down. But it felt good to create.”

Here’s what she wrote originally:
It is raining and in it I find solace, warmth and understanding.~ me

I commented that’s the way 90% of the world is: They have thoughts, but they are afraid or embarrased to write them down. Why?
Then I showed her something: With a little tweeking, her thought became a haiku (not that it’s better as a haiku… I think it’s brilliant as it first came out). But it points out the creative process: We have a raw thought. We capture it. We think about it. We tweek it. We publish it.

It is raining. In/
rain I find solace, warmth and /
deep understanding.

OR

It rains. I stand there./
In rain I find solace, warmth /
and understanding.