Notes to a Younger Writer

Things I wish I could tell my younger self about writing:

1. There are all kinds of armor. Some of them (like the attractive get up at right) protect your brain and lung cells when you're dealing with toxic chemicals. Other kinds of armor can and will protect your heart and soul when you're dealing with rejection letters, the occasional toxic person and the disappointments that are inevitable in any career. Learn these armors. Learn how to don them when needed. More importantly, learn how to take them off because you can't create from a closed up, claustrophobic heart.
2. There is no 'when things calm down.' It doesn't exist. Do the thing - the thing you keep putting off for a better time. For when you know more. You don't learn by not doing. You learn by trying, by making mistakes, by assessing, and by fixing. Make your mistakes often and early.
3. Give up caring what other people think of you. Truth is, they don't think of you. They're too busy wrapped up in the dramas and traumas of their own lives. This is both blessing and curse. Yes, you're alone. Deal with it. Because QUICK! No one's looking! You can try out those dance steps you're secretly afraid might be silly. Or that plot twist you suspect will either be brilliant or a train wreck. No one's watching. G'head. Experiment! You can always change it later.
4. Talk to people. More importantly, listen. Listen to what people say, sure, but more importantly listen to the stories people are telling themselves. Those stories are hidden beneath what they say. PS: Stay the hell out of the dime a dozen dramas that unfold in the industry. They're legion and they will devour your time and life energy if you let them. Also? The death of this genre, that genre, insert your death knell du jour here, or of publishing as a whole has been touted for decades. DECADES. People still buy books in one form or another. So shut up and write.
5. Write what YOU want. Screw what's popular right now. Your best work will be that which fascinates you, so wallow in your chosen freakiness and get on with jotting it all down.

Most everyone knows that I suffered undiagnosed major clinical depression as a teen and young adult. Until that was finally identified and treated, I wasn't capable of the kind of emotional resilience writing requires. I only say this because too many people suffer mood disorders without getting treatment. If you want to DO something, but find you just can't? Talk to your doctor. Ask to be assessed. If you are suffering from a disorder, it can be treated - which doesn't always mean meds forever. The point is that you have to stack the deck in your favor and if you feel gray all the time that's your life energy and your drive and motivation being stolen from you. You don't deserve that.

What I Wish I Knew When I Started Writing

If I had access to a time machine and could go back to slip some instructions to my younger self on the sly, the advice I would impart would be scribed on thick fine parchment, lettered in some elegant yet imposing hand. It would look like a scroll of days long past, the kind that bear secret knowledge that readers innately respect, and it would read something like this:

My Dear,

I cannot tell you the joy my heart felt at seeing you today. So young and full of potential. I know what you will become and I am proud of you. 

Yet, my letter comes with a warning: there is much unpleasant that is coming your way. 

It would seem a kindness to prepare you so as to shelter you from great heartaches, but trust me, to do so would - in truth - be a sinful disservice, so I dare not rob you of those coming and invaluable experiences. Indeed, the sun and the moon will both witness your tears and both will hear you cry. You will feel like the darkness is too close and too heavy, and though these bright heavenly orbs beckon your eyes upward, neither of them can be constant in illuminating your path. The sun sets. The moon wanes. 

Sometimes, you have to light your own candle and watch it burn until the dawn.

I do not tell you of your sorrow so you will fear it. Quite the opposite. I tell you because I want you to know that you faced it, that you dared to live and you never gave up. Even the sharpest of those aches could not permanently stifle your creativity or cage the boundless thing that you demand to be. Nothing can douse the fire burning in you. 

So what am I hoping to accomplish with this missive?

I want you to realize a bit sooner that through it all, there is one thing that is always, always there for you: words.

Use them.

Harness and hone them for they are the only tools you have with which to craft the contentedness your soul craves. Language combined with all that you have experienced will fuel your stories, woman. So embrace that pain you cannot avoid, that ache which wisens you and then, when the world is cruel and shoves you on your ass, you can stand up and show them all you have gleaned from it. 

And I love you. I love all that you - we - are.