by Helen Richardson

Created on: March 09, 2007   Last Updated: May 14, 2007

If you've done any research on how to write, you know that everyone wants to sell you their book or their magazine that is going to magically turn you into a writer and get you published. I have found most of the writing "how to" magazines to be entirely unhelpful, if not downright discouraging.

I started writing regularly when I was in third grade. My family was visiting my grandmother, and one of my mom's friends from highschool came over. She told my mom that she'd found an old diary from when they were kids, and asked her if she remembered a time when they made six dozen cookies in one day. My mom laughed and said she didn't remember that.

That's when it occurred to me that I wasn't going to be able to remember everything that happened to me as a kid when I grew up. I started thinking about how great it would be to leave a record for myself when I got to be an adult. Soon after that I went to a garage sale with my mother and found a blank diary for ten cents. I still have that diary, and although most of it is incredibly embarrassing, I cherish it.

I have a box of diaries and journals that grows a little bigger every year. The box has traveled with me from my parent's house to the dorm in college to all my various apartments and now to the house I live in with my husband. I think if our house were on fire, after I rescued my cats I'd have to drag that box out.

There was a point in my life during college when I felt discouraged about writing. I really wanted to write for a living and was dead set on getting published.

Does it matter if I ever get published? It used to matter to me so much. That was my main goal when I wrote, and I'd constantly think about what my writing would look like and who would read it and I'd try to think about what an editor might say about it. I now realize that was the entirely wrong approach.

I don't write to get published anymore. I realized that writing is a process and should be appreciated in and of itself. If I ever do get published and can make a living off my writing, I would be thrilled. But I'm not going to write just for that goal, and I'm not going to stop writing if that never happens.

The process of writing has been so therapeutic for me, and has enriched my life in so many ways. There were many times when I was literally at my wit's end and all that kept me sane was writing. I would write for hours, and afterward I felt better, like a weight had been lifted. There have been many times when I've felt so confused about something,

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