So it was a few weeks ago that my oldest niece, with the help of my brother, asked me if I would take some time to help her with her creative writing.

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that my niece, of her own volition, began to write a collection of stories about a girl who leaves where she was born and grows up in a new area, among new faces and places. I think through the summer she ended up with 7 or 8 good little chapters written so far in her story. And knowing this about her efforts so far, I thought “What can I teach this kid?” She’s doing what you need to do to be a writer. She writes.

Still, she is young and still learning- about words, and about grammar, and about English in general, and about communicating, and about this thing called life. She’s a kid. With intention.

I said yes to helping her that few weeks ago, but I was immediately tossed into the camp of “What do I do now?” I gave her a brief exercise on consult call 1 on Skype, which she did. Then this weekend, I wasn’t sure if we were chatting again since a meeting time had not been scheduled- but she texted at about 8 on Sunday morning, and we Skyped. I was unprepared and briefly read her submission for exercise one, and fumbled around without a plan for the morning.

So I have been asking myself “What AM I doing here?”

When I was younger and entertaining a career in ministry and attending seminary, another older classmate there told me, “I there is anything else you can do, do it.” I think he was trying to say if the formal calling wasn’t there, and I wasn’t driven to serve in a church out of love and a desire to do nothing else, it probably wouldn’t fill me up in the long run. You should do it if it’s the only thing you really want to do.

That’s probably a good suggestion for anyone searching for their vocation, but I’d have to say it would also apply particularly to the writer. Writing is often a solitary pursuit that creates a product that, when available for public consumption, leaves its provider open for some deep and challenging scrutiny. Most writers don’t just appear in an instant and find immediate success and acceptance. Most writers that work long and hard on writing still wander in the quiet ranks of the undiscovered, pedestrian pen pushers, reapplying their skills in other careers. You should only do it if there is nothing else you want to do.

But that’s not what you tell a 14 year-old. And I’m off my rocker even thinking such things. Because you don’t have to be on a New York Times Best Sellers list to be a writer.

You just have to see the world in the way that you do, and want to share about what you see with others. Or even yourself.

I’m 48 and I’m not even sure I’m qualified to teach anyone anything about writing. My sister and my brother are both technically more qualified to teach this stuff than I am. But writing is not just about learning the rules and making good, solid, diagrammable sentences and such. It’s also about putting your passions about life and living into words.

I tried to come up with an approach today.

I thought I would try to give her a grammatical exercise each week which she could answer, and then we could talk about on Skype to help her get more accustomed to the “rules of writing. I would also give her two or three writing exercises to complete as well, challenging her imagination and pushing her to write. I would then end the exercise sheet with a final thought that we could also talk about later on Skype- a “Words of Wisdom” blurb.

I came up with a short list of Words of Wisdom we will talk about, one a week, drawn from what I’ve read from others, what I’ve come to learn for myself, and also from what my mind tells me I should know as well. The preliminary list is as so:

1. Write every day.
2. Read tons.
3. Once you know the rules, you can break them.
4. Try to be good, not clever.
5. Simple is strong.
6. Write first. Edit later.
7. But don’t forget to edit.
8. Pay attention to life.
9. Get okay with rejection.
10. Say what you mean. Mean what you say.
11. Write about what you know.
12. Write as true as you can.
13. Write about what you love.