Quote: Importance of Reading to Writers

To Be a Writer...

‎"To write, to be a writer, I have to trust and believe in myself as a speaker, as a voice for the images. I have to believe that I can communicate with images and words and that I can do it well" - Gloria Anzaldúa

I read this quote the other night for a rhetoric class I'm taking. It's in Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera, and it resonated with me strongly. Writing is a pretty subjective art, and as such, there are going to be people who think your writing sucks and those who believe your writing sheds light on an otherwise dark day. We have to believe that we can write, that we can take words and make them sing on the page, make them resonate into flesh-and-blood characters who live and breathe, and cry and love, and struggle and overcome. If we don't believe it, who will?