On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.
Each Friday afternoon, I receive Funds for Writers, a free weekly newsletter from C. Hope Clark. Here’s a timely and thought-provoking reflection from a recent newsletter:
Before the COVID era, we moved like fish, the current and demands of survival directing us here and there to do what keeps us alive as writers. During this era, we aren’t certain what to do because the entire industry isn’t sure what to do. Even self-publishing, which was so sure of itself before the virus, hasn’t decided how to recuperate.
Now is the perfect time to decide who you intend to be as a writer.
But you don’t know what writing will be wanted, which publishers will still be alive, what topics will be in demand and which will have fallen off a cliff. But that is a good thing. You have no parameters. You have no directives. You have nobody telling you to write this or write that.
Now is probably the best, most wide-open time in your life to write what moves you.
I was told by a zillion people in my early years that nobody wanted to read Carolina Slade. Nobody liked a rural mystery. She was too quirky. I just turned in the fifth manuscript to the publisher, and a producer is working with a movie writer on a script.
The world doesn’t want more of the same. When it recovers from this virus, and when it starts shifting into a different normal way of life, there will be few rules of thumb. All will be different. That’s why you should start working on defining yourself now. Set goals. Work daily on those goals until they become habit. Suddenly you are a different person than before. . . probably closer to who you really are, because you have no shackles and no reins. You’re finally doing what you wanted to do.
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Joanne Guidoccio 