There’s a quote taped to my desktop computer that’s staring me in the face this very second. It comes from a writer who’s influenced me more than any other writer—William Saroyan. Speaking of which, there was a front page article in the San Francisco Chronicle last week about the 100th anniversary celebration of Saroyan’s birth that was going to take place at the Palace of Fine Arts here in San Francisco, the city where Saroyan made his mark on the world with his short story “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.” I called to see if I could attend the event but was told it was sold out, which saddened me. I was extremely happy, though, to know that Saroyan is still remembered and has a following. Here’s the quote that I personally got from him when I accidentally ran into him at a corner grocery store in San Francisco many years ago: “All writing is connected to writing.”
What does Saroyan’s quote mean? It means that anything you write—an e-mail, journal entry, story, plus everything from a Twitter tweet to a novel—is part of the writing process. But if you only think about writing and don’t write (believe me, I’m speaking from first-hand experience), that’s not writing, that’s procrastinating.
So, to all of you procrastinators out there, get on the ball, find a place to sit down and begin writing. Don’t worry about spelling and grammar. Start writing before you rot.