The following bit is meant to inspire someone.

Whatever it is, there’s something. A talent, an itch, a hobby, a pipe dream, a whimsy, or better still, a fancy. You’ve got it in there. It’s lodged in between your car payment and your cell phone bill, like a well-meaning third-grader between two Pro Bowl linebackers.

I’ll be honest, that metaphor didn’t develop like I planned. To my point.

I have always loved words. Words like fickle, blitz, and niggle. I like words that paint a picture, words so delectable that you would swear they actually leave a taste in your mind. I like the fact that I can choose which words I want, that no one can tell me otherwise, and they can be delivered on paper, in person, on a Post-It note, with a skywriter, over the radio, through a tin-can telephone, and can even rise up to the fingertips all bubbly and knobbly, a verbal relief in luxurious Braille. In a pinch, I can deliver them over the internet, like I am now, but I’d prefer that you just pretend that this is all on a rugged Egyptian papyrus, scrawled in my scratchy hand by the light of a single candle, handmade and flickering particles of light over a random bit of prose.

I’m not sure what it is that you like. Maybe you fancy yourself a painter. Maybe you like to make your own beer. Maybe you dance in your bedroom or sing in your shower. You’ve probably told someone at some point that no, you don’t have any talent, or no, you aren’t really any good at all.

Of course, you might actually suck. You could be the worst dancer of all time, with jerky limbs and a wayward hip. You might not be able to paint anything at all, slopping expensive oils onto expensive canvases, only to realize that your Picasso looks more like a preschool entrance exam. Your singing voice could be shrill, off-pitch, out of rhythm, an aural irritant. Your photography might not even make the wall of the employee lounge, much less the cover of National Geographic.

I’m here to tell you that it’s okay. No really, don’t sweat it. There is a time in the history of anything spectacular when it wasn’t.

I write a lot. A lot more than you will ever, ever see, so help me God. I backspace like a fiend. I rearrange, reshape, cut out, add to, insert, cut, copy, rotate, invert, expand, simplify, tweak, touch up, and edit so much that if I play my cards right, begin to make something actually interesting. Now, bear in mind it’s just interesting to me. I can’t speak for you. You might think it’s total crap. That’s okay, though, because I’m doing this for the love of it. No one is holding a loaded pistol to my temple screaming, “Write, damn it! Write!” If they did, I’d politely tell them to fetch me a thesaurus, whereupon I’d make for the nearest ventilation shaft. There’s always a ventilation shaft.

I feel that I’m qualified to say this to you now, because I’ve just finished something that I’ve always wanted to finish: my first book. But that’s not the reason I feel qualified. I feel qualified because nothing’s come of it yet. It’s still just mine, no one else’s, and it feels great. I’d like to say that extreme discipline, fortitude, an eye-on-the-prize mentality, or a heap of hallucinogens helped me find this bit of success, but it would be a heinous bit of self-aggrandizing poppycock. The truth is, I just loved it, each day, knowing there were countless bits, chunks even, of amateur flotsam floating around in my hopeful soup, and that no matter what I did, there was no real way for me to hide it. Every kid’s first recital sounds like his first recital, no matter the inherent ability. It’s a relative thing, like so many things we wish were not.

If you don’t love it when you suck at it, you won’t love it when someone tells you you’re good. You’ll just love the praise, which makes you selfish at best and priggish at worst. So, paint on, crappy painter. You’re no Van Gogh yet. And sing your little heart out, you drunken warbler. There’s no Grammy waiting for you today. And you, the unhinged non-dancer – trip the light fantastic. You won’t be dancing with any stars anytime soon.

But you are the reason that I write.