Dance like nobody’s watching. It’s a good reminder regardless of who said it. Mark Twain, as always, is listed as a possible source:
Sing like no one is listening
Love like you’ve never been hurt
Dance like nobody’s watching
And live like it’s heaven on earth
Twain, I think not. Satchel Paige is another. William Purkey. I’m surprised the Buddha isn’t wrongly attributed from 500 B.C. It has a tinge of Right Action from The Noble Eightfold Path in it, after all.
Regardless, it got me thinking: instead of singing or loving or dancing or living, how about writing?
Write like nobody’s reading.
I like it. I feel like it’s what I do half the time anyway. I was excited to post The Canoe Ride from Hell on Father’s Day. Maybe my dad read it in the afterlife because my site stats reflected dismal traffic down here in the other dimension.
Maybe it was too long. Maybe it was too short. Maybe it was because the word hell was in the title.
Whatever the reason, crickets.
Which got me bummed.
Why write if you feel that hardly anyone is reading?
Because I’m cursed.
I’m cursed with the need to write.
I have to write.
If I don’t write, I turn into a curmudgeon. And I don’t like curmudgeons.
Writing makes me appreciate the world around me.
The tiny details.
Like the cardinal chirping outside my window right now.
I started writing a poem last night about cardinals and how they come out after dusk to get their fill.
I plan to finish it tonight or tomorrow.
I’ll post it when I’m done.
If you read it, great.
If you don’t, I’ll keep writing like nobody’s reading.
Less pressure that way.
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4 replies on “Write like nobody’s reading”
I read and love all your writing
Thanks Colleen. You’re a loyal reader and I appreciate it. I just had a moment the other day when I got bummed out; but then I sat with the thought/feeling for a while. Even my wife told me to stop selling myself short 🙂 So I said to myself, “Self, most of what you write no one sees anyway and you still do it.”
I’ve written more than 30,000 words this month and only about 1,500 have made it to this blog. But I’ve enjoyed writing every word. Well, almost every word.
It’s a different type of writing than what I mainly post here. Short stories. I may start posting them.
If you keep writing I’ll keep reading 🙂
Deal.