“You wait for it to grow in your mind and suddenly you understand you can write about it. You quit longing for form and write what’s there. That sequence- that combination of patience with sudden impatience, that eventual yielding to the simple desire to tell- identifies the essay.”- Ian Frazier in “ The Essay as Action.”
If you ask around, almost everyone knows the saying, “patience is a virtue,” and when it comes to writing, it is an essential key. To write a great masterpiece takes time, commitment, thought and a lot of patience. Thoughts may dwell many years in the mind of an author before it is ever put to paper. To write something without thought or feeling is like disrespecting elders, or in this case, the readers, it’s ignominy. A first draft of a piece that has no mistakes, is a tragedy. A writer needs to toil to find his way through the piece and stumble on the meaning of both his writing and the journey taken.
The process of creating a work that will open the minds of many is long, but the outcome, great. The feeling of knowing what story you want to tell and what powerful statement it will withhold is overbearing. At this point, all form will be thrown out the window, but when complete of all agony, sweat and memories, the piece will show itself worthy of the reader; but only then will the reader connect and feel the strength of the piece. The power of a patient writer, the one who waits for prominence to come to mind and who waits for all emotion and meaning to step into the light and fall into place, can change lives. Without effort, patience and understanding, an essay would have no journey, no voice, no feeling, no meaning, and in that case, then what would be the point of one at all?
Remember that writing is a gift and the human mind is full of ideas, that have to flock and reflect to come alive. What makes every essay inimitable is the journey that it takes and the people it meets along the way. Everything makes an influence, either big or small to the essay and can ultimately determine the mood, the setting and the adventure that it takes. A great writing may take months, years or even a lifetime, but when it all comes together, if it was written with patience and an open mind, it will overpower anything written in haste or without feeling; some of the writer himself should be left in the piece so that every time it is read, the reader can see the struggle and see the adventure.
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