Writing encouragement by Anna Quindlen

As an aspiring writer, I frequently question whether I have anything worthwhile to say. But Anna Quindlen's Writing for Your Life gave me a lot of writing inspiration. I've been reading a lot about writing, but this is the first time I've come across the statement that writing is our responsibility (emphasis mine):

“Think of it this way: If you could look down right now and see words on paper, from anyone on earth or anyone who has left it, who would that be? And don’t you, as do I, wish that person had left such a thing behind? Doesn’t that argue for doing that yourself, no matter how terrifying or impossible writing may sometime seem? It doesn’t really matter what you say. It matters that you said it. The gift of your presence forever.”

Quindlen went on to use The Diary of Anne Frank an an example. Anne Frank didn’t intend to write a book and so you don’t need to write with a particular reader in mind:

“What sometimes gets lost, in the many decades since her father first published Anne Frank‘s diary, in the millions upon millions of copies it has sold in dozens of languages, is that when she first began, Anne Frank wasn’t writing a book. She was talking to herself. And she was talking to herself in a way that any of us can do too. She was finding solace in writing her life, her thoughts and feelings, day after day. Words to live by. Anne Frank was living through an extraordinary experience, an extraordinary time, an extraordinary horror, and to ground herself she was committing everything to paper, much of it not particularly profound.”

The book is full of examples of how writing can change and provide meaning to life. I'll make an effort to remember these teachings when in doubt.