Writing is a funny business

Writing is a funny business: compulsive, open-ended and exhilarating. It is also isolating, solitary and sometimes downright weird. Here we sit with our characters and our ideas, and who else is that bothered about them?

There have been times when I think back and suspect that, if I had known what I know now, about the long hours, the pay rates, the promotion and the nerve-racking waiting to see, I would never have started. As I say, it can be a strangely solitary pre-occupation…

But if I hadn’t bothered to tell my story, and if I hadn’t won the writers’ equivalent of the Lottery and persisted until I found a publisher, I would never have met hundreds of truly wonderful and supportive friends, in Authonomy, but also on Facebook, Twitter, all my on-line networks, within my faith community and simply in the world at large. I would never have known what I was capable of.

Writing is often a way in which we grow through our lessons to something more powerful. We learn that we can do many things, and that we owe it to ourselves to try.

Many writers worry about writer’s block, editing, publicity, promotion and all that goes with it. They worry about revealing their ‘babies’ to the public. They fret about the cost, the long hours and how they can fit in their writing around ordinary life. But many writers are reluctant to trade their obsession for something more ‘ordinary’, and few regret having learned valuable lessons. There are not many authors who find the same buzz in a day job. Because, when the chips are down, there is nothing more exciting, there is no thrill that compares to finding a story, writing it out and finally deciding to call it finished.

Thanks for reading.

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