What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?

Daily writing prompt

What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?

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Hm… do it with joy.

No matter what it is, if you find something that gives you joy and doesn’t harm anybody, do it. Write that story. Paint that picture. Draw that image, comic, or world you keep seeing in your head.

I used to watch Def Poetry Jam, and J. Ivy’s poem “I Need to Write” still rings in my ears. I’ve been writing for a long time, but for years I was afraid to really share my work. At one point, I wanted to be the next big local writer, but the truth is, I don’t think I fully knew my own writing style yet.

It’s kind of like in anime, when the young protagonist sees their potential but has no idea how to control it yet. That was me. I had the stories, I had the ideas, but I still had to learn how to shape them. I had to find my joy in writing all over again.

Now I’m 35, and that poem still haunts me in the best way.

I may not sell a lot. I may not be famous. But I enjoy writing and creating enough to keep doing it. And now, my biggest inspirations are my children. I smile thinking about them growing up, seeing these books, and maybe one day picking them up and reading something their pops left behind.

Nothing is wrong with me for saying that. I just grew up with both my mother and father gone, and I don’t have much from them besides word of mouth and pieces of memory. I would have loved to have something they created, something I could hold onto and say, “This came from them.”

So that’s part of why I write now. I’m building something my children can grow up with. Something they might one day read, understand, or even add to in their own way. They already have a love for creating their own worlds through drawing and Legos, and I never want them to lose that creativity.

So if I had any advice to give someone younger than me, it would be this:

Do it with joy.

Create because it moves you. Share it when you’re ready. Don’t let fear freeze you in place. And don’t wait until everything is perfect to start becoming who you already are.

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