On the Right to Write

In one of my writing workshops this week, a writer did something that stopped me.

She was working on a scene — a character under pressure, falling apart quietly. And instead of reaching for something invented, she reached for something real. A moment from her own week. The stress she'd been carrying, and the way she'd dug her fingers into her shoulders trying to release it. She gave that to her character.

The scene came alive in a way it hadn't before. Because it was true. Not factually true — but true in the way that only comes from someone who has actually felt it.

That's what I want to talk about today.

There's a particular kind of person who wants to write.

You can spot them because they carry their stories around with them — things they've seen, felt, lived through, or imagined so vividly they feel real. They think about writing more than they actually write. And somewhere underneath all of that is a question they haven't quite said out loud: who am I to tell this story?

I want to talk about that question today.

Here's what I've come to believe: the desire to write and the resistance around it almost always arrive together. The worry, the doubt, the comparison, the procrastination — these aren't signs that you're not a writer. They're signs that you are one. You don't face that particular kind of resistance around things that don't matter to you. The resistance shows up because the writing matters. Because something in you knows it's yours to do.

You don't choose a calling. It chooses you. And the way you know it's chosen you is exactly this — the wanting and the fear, living in the same place.

So if you've got the desire and the doubt, here's what I want you to hear: you already have the right to write. You don't earn it. You don't study your way into it or wait until you're ready. You just start.

And what you bring to the page — your experiences, your memories, the way your mind moves through the world — that's not a limitation. That's the whole point. Whether you're writing about a life you've lived or a world you've imagined, the thing that makes your story worth reading is how you see it. No one else has your angle. No one else would notice what you notice, linger where you linger, feel what you feel in the middle of a quiet scene.

The more you lean into that — the more you trust your own way of seeing — the more alive your writing becomes.

So start. Write the thing you've been circling. It doesn't have to be good yet. It just has to be yours.

And if you're lucky enough to have someone in your life who wants to read it — a friend, a partner, someone who gets it — share it with them. That first moment of handing your writing to another person and watching them receive it is something. It changes things.

If you want more than that — a room full of people who are doing the same thing, a place to write and learn and share and be heard — I'm running a six-week writing workshop starting next week. Think of it like a camp. Six weeks of living as a writer. We write together, we learn together, and we read each other's work in a space that's warm, low-stakes, and genuinely good for your writing.

It's for people who are ready to start — or ready to start again.

You can find out more and register here: May Writing Workshops

Wishing you and your stories all the best,

Trevor Martens

Founder, I Help You Write Things

P.S. Want to start right now? Set a timer for four minutes. Write about something you can still see clearly — a moment, a place, a person. Don't explain it. Just put it on the page.