Continue.
In spite of support, opposition or doubt–continue.
It is a powerful word, continue. For a writer, it means you have or should be endowed with enough strength to complete that which you have started. Regardless of how long it takes. Regardless of who thinks you can’t. As a writer, continue is your superpower.
No matter how long is has been to start, no matter how long it may take to finish. Activate your continue. That, dear one, is at the core of all writers.
With Love & Ink,
JBHarris
Embrace that which is uncomfortable. Sometimes to get at what it is you want from a work, you have to wrestle with it. You have to be both writer and reader!
Answer the questions that need to be answered. Veil the things you want your readers to sit with. But wrestle, my dear ones. Be prepared to wrestle. The writing will be fun, the ride will be wild. Just beware of the curves.
With Love & Ink,
JBHarris
Writing doesn’t always follow a primrose path. Sometimes the path is dark, and scary and impossible-feeling.
But what I want to remind you of this something you may not think about: you control the path.
Yes, you.
The story cannot have life breathed into it unless it has a willing vessel, a place to grow before pushed into the world. You determine how fast, and how hard you will push the story.
You control the start and the finish–and everything in between.
With Love & Ink,
JBHarris
Fall in love again.
Let today be the final day, the last day, you wonder if you are good enough to do this precarious, dangerous, enchanting work we call writing.
I want you to embrace the changes, the lulls, the of it all.
I want you to begin to enjoy the ride–and if needed? Get a seat belt.
With Love & Ink,
JBHarris
Self-rejection is a slow poison.
It is a poison whose apothecary is familiar. Whom is familiar with their victims as well as their enemies.
But what happens when they are one and the same?
Every time you reject a story, a portion of your imagination vanishes. Every time you scrap a story because you’re scared to write it, more of you vanishes.
Rage against the dying of the light.
Poison is for those dying or marked for death.
Writing is a source of life.
With Love & Ink,
JBHarris
Be gentle with yourself today.
The work in progress is called this for a reason. The progress in this work can be incremental—but do it. No matter how small or insignificant.
Do the work.
Happy, loud or sad, but do it.
With Love & Ink,
JBHarris
Shameless plug to remind you to read.
Writers are readers, inquisitive about the world around them so they can create another. If you’re stuck in process of creating an WIP and become discouraged, take a break. Fill up that blank time with a book.
Sometimes the words of others, stir our own.
With Love & Ink,
JBHarris
