2023: RUN AT IT

May 2023: Being Steadfast (Turn #1 When You Want To Turn Back)

Stephen King almost burned CARRIE if not for his wife, Tabitha. Before the success of CARRIE, he was submitting short stories to magazines, had his work published and paid–but he almost threw CARRIE away.

Maya Angelou had the mentorship of James Baldwin and other writer’s groups to keep her going.

Octavia Butler said that she wrote about power so much because she had so little.

Every writer needs people in their lives to believe in them, to see brilliance in their work that their doubt cannot see or be seen. I call these people the YIELD signs. These are the people who tell you that you can, when you can’t.

They tell you that turn is a feeling.

They tell you to write writing something else.

They pre-order books for their own book clubs.

They follow your email lists, and social media.

They call you to check on the invisible people.

They tell you that you can go forward if you want. And better yet–they are there as you go. They will be there for you as you go…they will be there as you turn back around to go forward. Those people are invaluable–keep them! Don’t leave them at gas stations, or parking lots when you think you got it all together.

Take them with you…you will need them again.

May 2023: Being Steadfast (Turn #1 When You Want To Turn Back)

Let me tell you a secret.

If you want to turn back, you can.

If you want to go forward, you can.

This is completely up to you. Yet, but I want you to know that there is no fun in a turnback. But here is what you will inherit if you turnback.

You will earn something that is worse than that rejection: REGRET.

It is one thing to get rejected over a work that you completed, edited and shopped.

It is another to allow the fear to choke the creative out of you.

A completed work can be reshopped, edited again, and submitted–but an incomplete work cannot be.

What is it that you desire to do writer?

If you go forward–there is a way forward. If you turnback, there is no way forward…by your own hand.

May 2023: Being Steadfast (Turn #1 When You Want To Turn Back)

There will be a time where you will want to stop. I will not lie to you.

There will be times where stopping would be sexier than continuing ever could be. Yet, The Turn is going to determine what it is you are going to do next honestly. I will tell you this one thing. If you stop now, the story (no pun intended) will end right there.

Right there. Right now.

And how you handle The Turn, or a potential turn, is how you will continue. You must determine if you want to continue! The Turn (or the ghost thereof) is not bad in and of itself. It is something that you need to realize which is a reality.

A Turn is neutral. It is your reaction that will make it positive or negative.

Turns are watershed moments which invite you to look within you, to pull something else out–or to show you that nothing else is there. If there be something else in you that cannot relinquish this art, that cannot bear to keep silent, then do not turn back.

Dare to continue.

Stop at the pitstop and get gas–and keep going.

May 2023: Being Steadfast (Turn #1: When You Want To Turn Back)

If writers are honest, we will tell you that there are instances which provoke us to stop.

If we are honest, we will tell you of the instance where people didn’t believe in us, deterred us, and wanted us to “do something safer.”

Yet, we do not.

Yet, every writer–whether they are traditionally published, or selling books out of the back of their trunks–have stories (multiple stories!) about how they almost quite, should have quit, and secretly wished they had at points.

Which, brings us to this idea–or warning.

THE TURN.

“The Turn” is the pivot point by which writer must confront in order to realize what they have in the tank to finish, not just a work–but this journey.

“The Turn” will teach you more than success ever will.

April 2023: REVAMPING

As of This year, I am in my 8th year of indie writing, blogging, and authorship.

Has it been easy? Of course not!

Yet, what has allowed me to keep going, to trust in my talent, and make in-roads for myself (and others) is my ability to revamp my approaches or content, and pivot when need be and necessary.

Why, this blog happened because I saw a need, and sought to fulfill it. While there are other writers who do what I do, only I can do it like me–to the tune of over 1000 posts at this point (I’m pretty proud of that!).

Yet, the most crucial tool that I can use, and use often is revamping. I often look at what I am doing that is working, what isn’t working, and what I need to do better.

In order to do what I love to do, which is write, I need to be able to look at what I am doing not just as an artist–but an adult! I still have a life outside of words! Since I have other responsibilities, I have to build like around those also.

Revamping is a tool–and a necessity.

April 2023: REVAMPING

The scary thing about writing is what it will require you to do: CHANGE.

It will require that you look at what you want versus what you have, and consider if it can be better, if it is working, and can it be better.

Writers an be stubborn.

Writers lie.

Writers will say what is working when it is not actually working.

Writers require a unique support, like all artists do because of the demands on our creative energies.

Writers also are–adaptive!

The plasticity of writing allows us to look at what isn’t working, what is working and change. But this ‘change’ is what we run from, and need to confront. By confronting it, we allow room for us to look at what we are proud of and want to keep, and examine what we can (and should) do better.

Embrace the process.

Embrace where you are going.

You can do it.

March 2023: Go!

“Can I do it?”

“Will I do it?”

“What if no one likes it?”

The answer to these questions are as unique as the authors who pose them. Yet, the fact you are even posing these questions to the wall, to windows, or the people closest to you–means that you have enough in you to temper creativity with apprehension. Every creative person does!

Yet, while some of recoil from the stories in our head that demand to be told, some of us go anyway.

Even if you fail, you can try again!

Even if you think no one will like it, that doesn’t matter. The better question is do you like it?

Your first critic and champion will be and is always you.

Don’t give up before you get started–KEEP GOING!

Go and see what happens!

March 2023: Go!

The decision to write is both simple and complicated.

For every writer brave enough to attach their name to an idea, there a writer that needs a pen name.

For every writer that decides to put their own story on paper, there is writer commissioned to get a family story down.

Some writers need 20 years to get up enough nerve, some need 20 minutes.

Your GO may be different than mine, and that is needed an necessary!

It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to go, as long as you go.

March 2023: Go!

The hardest thing is to admit that you have a story in you that is ignored.

Not unwritten, but IGNORED.

For all that is inside you, with you being a storyteller, do you understand how essential it is to tell your story?

Do you realize what will happen if you IGNORE the story on the inside of you? It will become an infection. It will touch and corrupt anything and everything in your life you want to create with.

In the storm of uncertainity, you have to decide which is better (or worse): a story untold or a story ignored?

March 2023: Go!

Now that you have planned, cried a little, now it is time to create!

The part of you that is hesitant, fearful, and unsure–the best way to silence it is to write. The cure is to create. There is a world that is waiting on your brillance, your talent, and your genius! It will never be a safer time to write, and easier time to put in the world what you desire.

There is no time like the present.

Embrace the fear and do it anyway.

Pack up the apprehension and hush it.

Bring the doubt as a counterweight, and do it anyway.

It is your time. Do it.

Do it now.