Your entire being - color of your skin, your grandparents’ homeland, your entire genetic make-up is right there - and now you have a choice - you can do what you believe you can, or you can carry your sense of pride or shame with you your entire life and never reach goals and reap benefits you could have.

Writing is a career where choices from very beginning are yours. In a sense, you create your character, give him all his genetic qualities, and then even write history for his ancestry. You are in control of who, what, where, and when. However, as with any choice, there are drawbacks as well as advantages. If your character is not a member of your particular ethnic, religious, or race group, your ability to relate and to transmit ideas run into a brick wall, so to speak. Sure, you can put yourself in their place, but it would be according to your standards, and your beliefs. This ingrained system of standards and beliefs were taught to you by your parents, relatives, environment. and world itself. Now that you have decided to write, how do you overcome this stumbling block?

As writers, we sometimes lose that child-like quality of spontaneous insight. into stories we are trying to write. We work at writing, instead of letting writing work in us. Some stories I have read give mundane, dull, and very uninteresting descriptions of scenes that could be brought alive and made vibrant with right words. When you are trying to describe something to your reader, close your eyes and in your mind see whatever it is “for first time”. You never saw it before and you are trying to take in all details. All your senses are aware of this scene or object and they all want to participate. Let go and let them. Don’t let them hold back. They are artists of your creativity so taking away their paints and brushes will only harm your work.