Blog

THOSE WHO CAN, DO. THOSE WHO CAN’T, . . .

You may have heard the old cliché that says, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” I disagree with that and anything else that belittles or minimizes the task of a teacher. My father was an elementary school teacher and principal for thirty-four years. Both of my own kids are high school teachers. My son just retired after twenty-eight years at the same school. Both of my ex-in-laws were teachers. I sometimes think I should have been a teacher. Teaching is one of the hardest but most worthwhile callings in the world. Not everyone can do it. That’s why I labeled it as a calling and not a profession.

Sorry—I digress. There are also those who think that it should be, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, settle for writing about it.” Hmm. Maye there’s something to that. As with most platitudes, it’s nothing as simple as it sounds.

Some advice from Ben Franklin seems to corroborate this concept: “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing [about].” I suppose it’s true that most of us don’t achieve more than minimal success with either one. In fact, for much of my life, I struggled with finding a career that would be “something worth writing [about].

I don’t seem to have managed that in my own eyes, so I’m pursuing Franklin’s option one. I think writing is a calling, like teaching. At least that’s how it is with me. You’re going to have to pry the computer keyboard (or iPad) from my dead, cold fingers. That’s why I pray to God, “I’m ready, Lord. But since you’ve put all these book ideas in my head and heart, the least you could do is give me time and energy to write the stories.”

Every author had a different and complicated reason why they write. I’m still figuring out why I write any fiction, let alone romances. One simple reason is that I enjoy it. For many people, that’s enough.

But it’s more than that in my case. I feel driven, almost obsessed with putting these stories in a form that others may read and enjoy them. I have to follow the rules to make them proper books so that the system will accept them as legitimate. The key part, though, is I NEED others to read what I’ve written. I’d gladly give the books away, but I know that won’t work.

There’s a quote at the top of my author website that tells what my goals are:

“I want to have someone stay up all night reading because he or she can’t put down one of my books. I want someone to fall in love with my characters, to root for their happy ending. I want someone to lose themselves in a world I created and never want to leave. I want someone to realize from reading my books that maybe they can have their own happily ever-after, that the concepts of love and romance are not obsolete in our world.”

I can live, and gladly die, with that.

Richard McClellan