"If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for the Creator, there is no poverty."
~Rainer Maria Rilke

I like to think of the Creator and His riches - that the One who can see in the meanest soul, a happy image of His own abundant love; can also, in the deepest poverty call forth the riches of beauty. I think of it especially in the Christ Child, who, being both Christ and a little child, can relish life in a way that we His people can only strive to imitate.

I've seen in many striving writers a tendency to discard their own lives. To write as other writers have written instead of writing from life. But if we merely imitate the experiences of other writers, we doom our writing. It is no longer honest, it is no longer ours. This is not to discount myth, or fantasy, which can still be drawn from the richness of our own daily life. It is those who strive to imitate without discovering their own voice, and the experience and wisdom that comes from each individual life who fail to infuse their writing with soul.