The Week in Words

-
Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week  inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read.

Only one quote this week . . .

I've been reading How To Be a Writer by Barbara Baig recently. I'd never heard of her before beginning this book, but I love her philosophy! Here is what she says about "talent" in relation to writing (which I feel can be applied to any creative pursuit):
Talent is the assumptions we make about other people's abilities that keep us from developing our own . . . The question is not: "Do I have any talent?" The question is, "Am I willing to find out whether I really want to do this?"  Barbara Baig, How To Be A Writer, p. 32
Those words spoke so deeply to me on several different levels. I play the piano, and I think I have a bit of natural talent, but what made me pursue and improve my playing was "really wanting to do this," more so than talent.

That gives me hope for writing! I've considered writing seriously for a while, but never thought I could really do it, because I don't feel that I have writing talent. But can it be possible that what I've considered talent in others is just assumptions about their abilities? Maybe they were just more willing to find out whether they really wanted to write rather than having some mysterious talent. That's something to consider in so many areas!

Comments

  1. Anonymous6:58 AM

    Just put that book on my wish list! We do tend to make those assumptions. Something I have wrestled with as well is that even though other people's talents ARE bigger/better/more developed than mine, that doesn't mean I am never supposed to use mine.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Susan10:52 AM

    I also have the perfectionist mindset that, if I can't do it well - even exceptionally well - then I don't want to do it. Somewhere along the way I lost the idea of doing something to enjoy it or to learn something new rather than having to be the best at it. And so I've missed out on doing quite a few things simply because I didn't want to just learn to do it. Make sense?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lisa notes...4:42 PM

    What an excellent attitude. Rare is the person who is so naturally gifted at something that they need no practice at all, which means everybody else really does have to work at honing their skill. It leaves the door open for us to do the same in many different areas--if we're willing to try. Let's keep writing!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for taking a minute to read my ramblings and leave a comment! I appreciate it!

Popular posts from this blog

A Week of Modest Dress

-
Image
The rest of this series can be found at these links: Friday , Saturday , Sunday , Monday , Tuesday , Wednesday . Some ladies around the Blogosphere have been posting pictures of themselves going about their everyday routine in dresses. Many of us ladies wear dresses and skirts all the time, and others have asked how we play with our children, do our housework, exercise, in dresses. Candy decided to show some ladies doing just that on her blog, and asked for ladies to post pics on their blogs too. This kind of thing appeals to me, so I had to get in on the action on this one. I'll post pics each day for a week (if I can keep my son Andrew taking pictures!), and you'll see a little bit of our life as a pastor's family, as well as see how another lady and her daughter (though not so many pics of her - she's camera shy!) live out their conviction of modest dress in their everyday lives. Here I am this morning, as Samuel and I left the house for our walk. I alterna...
Read more

Who - or What - Is Your God?

-
I've read lots of opinions on lots of things during my years online. Wes was a programmer in the US Air Force from 1990 till 1996, and naturally, as e-mail and the internet came into more common use, our family was on the front edge of technology. I remember searching the web for Christian women's sites, and finding very little. After a while, more and more Christian sites began showing up, and I began reading and joining forums. It came to the point that I was reading about lifestyles varying somewhat from my rather mainstream independent Baptist upbringing. Some of it made sense to me, other things were a little far out there for me. None of it was wrong, though, and everyone had Scripture to back up what they believed. The latest thing to hit the internet is the blog. Everybody has one, at least everyone who knows what a blog is! And that includes me, of course. I love blogging. Anyway . . . we all read each other's blogs and it's almost like a parallel soc...
Read more

How Do You Respond?

-
This might get a little preachy, but it's something that hit me square in the face yesterday and I thought it would be a good thing to share. To set the stage: Yesterday morning, Wes and I were getting ready to take the kids shopping down in Bellingham, WA. The Lord has blessed us with an extra bit this month, and the kids and Wes needed some things, so after Andrew and Beth were finished with school, we were planning to head out. I needed to know what Wes wanted to do about lunch and supper, since we'd be leaving right around lunch time and we weren't sure when we'd get back home. I asked him if he wanted me to fix our main meal of the day before we left (which we've been doing recently), and he said no; we'd take some snacks with us. So I was planning what I'd do before we left so supper would be quicker when we got home. He casually said, "I thought we might stop at Red Robin (a restaurant) on the way home," to which I immediately respond...
Read more