Recently, in our wonderful Mentoring Class, Elizabeth Stark posed some interesting questions to us, about why we think we write and what our mission is. My wonderful colleagues at the Book Writing World generously shared their answers and allowing me to publish them. I don’t want to color their answers by their gender or geographic location, their genres. So I’m going to label them only by letters in the alphabet, because all of their answers are just amazing and thoughtful and inspirational.

Elizabeth: what is your purpose as a writer? Assume for a moment that you did not choose to be a writer, to feel the itch you feel to put words on the page or to get your words out into the world. Assume that your gifts, your talent with language and images and story, were given to you for a specific and concrete reason not of your own making. What if the one and only you were put on this earth for a reason? This is not an egotistical vision–quite the opposite. You are not taking credit for your brilliance and talent and voice–but you are taking responsibility for it. You have been given a gift.

What is your statement of purpose? In a line, what were you put on this earth to do, not quite like anyone else on earth?

B: My purpose is to tell the truth and, unlike so many characters who excuse their rudeness as “telling it like it is,” I’m supposed to get others to listen.

S: to be the pointing finger — leading toward truthfulness and honesty

F: To witness, see below surfaces, translate, convey.

P: change the way people look at themselves by telling the truth about what I see, so they can understand and honor themselves…

X: To share the bi-cultural point of view; of weaving back and forth between two different cultures; to share other ways of seeing the world besides the dominant paradigm.

Elizabeth: And what are your instructions? Assignment: Write a list of instructions to your writing self. Think BIG, as if a benign universal force were directing you. And number the instructions, if that is useful.

P: 1. Stop making excuses

S: 1. do not stop. 2. do not stop for anyone. 3. do not pass GO, do not collect $200. 4. just keep casting the die and keep playing, no matter what.

P: 2. Believe that you matter; that there are people who will choose you and your work  3. live today  4.  do only what you want to do

F: 1. survive the early days. believe that you will survive. 2. learn how to watch people and how to listen to what they are really saying. 3. practice writing. practice honing so that the words are precise and surprising. 4. learn how to find others like yourself and learn how to be with them. 5. keep going no matter what. write the books that haven’t been written, write the books that might cost you more than know. 6. be glad that you can do this. be joyous. 7. learn that publishing has nothing to do with anything. 8. begin again at step one.

P: 5. keep writing because there is another story to tell  6.  let it find you

X: 1. Write as you are. What you are is plenty enough. You do not have to be  or become what you are not. You are good enough for what you want to do. You have all the necessary supplies. You have been given them already. You do not need to search for the perfect space, the perfect day, the perfect moment to write. You already have them. They are right in front of you. You have been given all the most perfect moments right in front of you. They are ahead of you.

2.  Proceed as if you know what you are doing. You already do, even if you forget sometimes.

3. Remember all the good things you have already done. The rest of your life is the same. You will continue to do many good things.

4. Your life is full. That is not a problem. That is what is. Ride the flow as best as you can. You are a boat on a very wide ocean. You do not know what is coming up ahead. These are, in fact, the conditions under which you are to create. These are the conditions under which every human being has to and must create. The only condition is that you accept this basic condition and try to not resist the actual situation.

5. Do not try and work too hard, if it takes you out of the flow. Take as many rest stops as you think you need. Do not feel guilty about these rest stops along the way.

6. Clear and clean as you go along. Do not procrastinate that activity.

7. Be satisfied each day with what you are actually able to accomplish. Do not get discouraged too often, though that, too, is a part of it all.

8.  Meditate every single day. Walk every single day. Keep moving.

9.  Read a lot.

10. Try to stay calm as much as you can.

F: 7b. accept that there will always never be enough time, that you will feel derailed, that you will regularly despair. learn resilience. know that you are not alone in these difficulties and that you can persist.

P: Fill yourself– it has been over twenty, no fifty years of generosity.  Buy a pair of pants.  Get a haircut

B:1. Find the most common, mundane situation with the most common, mundane people. 2. Walk around it/them and around it/them until you find an unusual yet interesting angle. 3. Watch so you’re not noticed, but soak up everything you can about what/who you’re observing. 4. If someone talks to you, wing it. But they probably won’t. Most people are shy with strangers. 5. Observe observe observe. Listen listen listen. 6a. Write about it/them… 6b. As you keep observing and listening. 7. Don’t even try to guess what they’re thinking. Observe and listen until you’re in their heads. But always make sure you can get back out. 8. Write more. Show them who they are. Show them what their lives are like.

N: Since I’m naturally compelled to create and there is no one else on Earth I give myself permission to go as zany and wild as I want. There won’t be any agents, critics, editors to please, only myself & the Universal Creator. I can make books as large as murals or as tiny as a mouse’s book. I can stage a whole world in the art shop with mannequins to write & illustrate about. I can make an art mobile out of an RV & travel all around sketching and writing, siphoning gas for free!