It isn’t how many words you write
What matters is the reason you’re in the fight
How far you travel into the night
And what you bring back into the light
Fewer words are better because fewer have more power
Choose them carefully, make each word a flower
Planted and nurtured to enhance the view
That you want me to see when I look through you
A hundred well chosen are better by far
Than the thousand a day advised by the stars
Who are no more than self-appointed gurus
Still in the process of paying their dues
You are the ultimate teacher for you
Comparing yourself to others and joining the queue
Obscures your truth as you struggle through trials
That delay your discovering your own voice and style
There are no shortcuts, you must craft every phrase
You must discover your own way to walk through the maze
You’ll connect with readers if your writing is true
If you’re investing enough of the stuff that is you
You can’t measure your excellence by counting your words
Success is not a bigger flock of black birds
It’s what you can tell me of a single bird’s song
That makes me want to join you as you travel along
Into a land where I don’t know the trail
To struggle with you, to succeed or to fail
To share your emotions, your passions, your heart
To feel your nakedness as you play your part
To experience your bleeding so I can bleed, too
Sharing the insights that came out of the blue
Unexpected and sudden, like a thundering squall
A flash flood to carry us over the falls
It isn’t how many words you write
What matters is the reason you’re in the fight
How far you travel into the night
And what you bring back into the light