I encourage you to write today

I do.

I encourage you to write today. To create in whatever form you prefer, but as a reader who wants more great books and a writer who lives for this thing, I encourage you to write today. Write with a knife between your teeth. Write about that thing you rarely talk about. Write that memory as fiction so you can share a chunk of your heart with the world. Write angry. Write sad. Write instead of doomscrolling or arguing with people online. I encourage you to write today.

I encourage you to write today because the world is on fire and while it’s true that the things we make or publish or keep to ourselves don’t hold enough power to solve everything, I assure you that pulling someone away from reality for a while or making them feel less alone or giving them something to laugh about or making a connection with them is fucking awesome and we all need more of that. So yeah, I encourage you to write today.

I encourage you to write today because every morning after the gym I stand in my living room and scream, “I went to the gym and I’m still angry. What the fuck AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THE ANGER?!” And every day the ghosts that live in the corners scream back in unison, “Write!” And so I do. I write. It’s not always good. Hell, sometimes it’s so far from good I delete all of it. But I write, and some days the stuff I write is worth keeping and that’s how you write a thing, one word at a time. So write, because putting in the work is what matters. Write and make it sing. Show us your voice. Write like tech bros are feeding your soul to their plagiarism machine and the only thing we can do for now is to write the weirdest, bravest, angriest, dirtiest, darkest, loveliest, most amazing shit we can and let the machine feed on itself. Escribe en español. Écrivez en français. Escreva em português. Scrivi in ​​italiano. Ekri an kreyòl. Skriv på norsk. I encourage you to write today.

I encourage you to write today as if your government is trying to hurt you. Write things that make fascists angry. Making fascists angry is always a good thing. Write so they can’t erase the past. Write because they’re trying to erase you and your friends and all of us. Write about the things that bring you joy. Write about the things that give you nightmares. Write about people killing each other. Write about people falling in love. Write about politics. Write about monsters of both kinds. Write a trope in a new way. Write about people fucking dragons and destroying patriarchy. Write about Bigfoot or corruption or the things you hope for and the future you imagine and the ones you fear. Write about the kisses you gave and the ones you got and the ones you share and the ones you swallowed. Then do the same with promises. Write about reading that book for the first time or that fight that left wounds that won’t heal or the way bell hooks changed the way you look at things. Write a letter to Shirley Jackson or Octavia Butler or Mary Shelley or Pablo Neruda or Breece D'J Pancake or Flannery O'Connor or J. G. Ballard or Roberto Bolaño or Langston Hughes and then put it in the mail with no addresses or burn it at midnight under a full moon. Write about encouragement and pain. Write a song. A poem. A novel. An essay. A line. A single fucking word that means the world to you. Write prayers and curses. Write biographies for those who never were, for the voices in your head, for the shadow figures and the ghosts. I encourage you to write today.

And listen, I don’t give a fuck if you’re a fellow person of color or a member of the LGBTQ+ community or neurodivergent or a first generation immigrant or disabled, but if you are these things–because identity isn’t monolithic and disabled people of color have the right to love whoever they want–I encourage you to write today. I encourage you to write from your lens, from your experience, from your uniqueness. I encourage you to write about YOU today.

I encourage you to write today.

I encourage you to write.

I encourage you.

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PS- Thanks for reading! Also, I woke up this morning and realized Zero Saints will be here again in a few days and there will be no tour or anything for it, so please preorder wherever you buy books! Anyway, seriously, I encourage you to write today.