In my 50s, I'm finally in a place where I like myself most of the time. But it's taken learning how and when to protect myself and when to take risks. I am fortunate to be married to a supportive man who's helped me find my way.
Maybe I wouldn't have arrived here who I am without all those struggles, but--if I had to do it all over again I'd--
Listen more. Talk a bit less.
Laugh a lot more.
Practice love as a first-best response to all people. In recent years, I've found that most people are starved for it.
Learn how and when to say no and not feel bad about having boundaries and limits.
Focus. I am A.D.D. Seriously. So getting to a place where I can just... sit down and write and not be thinking about all the other things in my life, all the things that are worrying me, the chores, messages from people, etc? It's a lot.
Being read. Hearing people say, "I read your book and.." then hearing them talk about how it affected them. Knowing that my books are people with characters who walk around inside readers' minds? That's success.
All those hours you're spending at the computer right now, all the sleep you're losing? All those poems? Worth it.
All those relatives who rolled their eyes at you for all those hours you're spending in front of the computer? Someday they're going to ask you to autograph a book you wrote.
This won't just be about the books you write or the short stories you publish. It will be about your children seeing you do it and understanding that not giving up is the key to success.
Kidding. Don't do that (this a sort of "Do what I say, not what I do" piece of advice, by the way).
Have secondary creative outlets or hobbies. Play an instrument, garden, go camping, paint--whatever gives you something else to think about. Find someone in your life who cares about your writing. I don't mean other writers necessarily, though those can be greatly useful when you're stuck or are stressed about lack of sales, etc. I mean someone who believes what you do is important--they listen, help you spitball solutions, and cheer you on.
There are different kinds of good writing. There is good writing that is "invisible"--transports the reader into the story without reminding the reader that they are reading it. This is competency at its best. It avoids cliche and unnecessary speech tags and all the other distracting dreck, but doesn't rely heavily on language or cadence. And there is good writing that relies on rich imagery and language to tell the story. The reader knows they're reading, but they don't mind because they are being treated to a sort of mental music.
All good writing includes an intriguing opening line, keeps the reader turning the page, pays close attention to the build up and the conflict, and has a strong close. Someone once said that your first page gets the reader to read the rest of the book and the ending gets them to read your next one.
To accept the majority of the royalties for an author's book and require the author to do most or all of the marketing themselves. If publishing commercially taught me anything, it's that there's nothing a publisher can do for me that I can't do for myself.
I've been writing since I was a kid. I like to tell people it's because I couldn't draw and often had to provide explanations for my pictures. Eventually the pictures got smaller and the explanations got longer.
So how long have I been doing this? Off and on since childhood and continuously since my 20s.
