I think one of the issues here is that when people come into the world of writing, they’ve been sold the idea that “writing is easy.” After all, what qualifications do you really need to call yourself a writer? Just throw some words down onto a page or into a document, and there you have it — writer!

It’s only after experiencing the frustrations and the failures, the competition and the chaos, the hard path and the hard perception that writing is so much harder than they first thought.

Because of that, it seems they are owed something, and so those of us who went through the obstacle course and clawed our way up into our careers are the ones to pay it forward. Except that we’re still struggling, just a little, because otherwise we wouldn’t or couldn't write.

So yes, we may have something to say, but it’s not just for them — it’s for us all, for it’s only through sharing our stories and ideas that we make it just that tiny bit easier for the next person with their grand ideas of being a metaphor-slinger.