WU’s Greatest Gift
If you’ve visited Writer Unboxed in the past few days, you know that the blogsite and the community recently celebrated its 16th birthday. Therese shared a few stats in the commemorative post on Saturday, so I thought it would be fun to start this post by sharing a few of my own personal WU historical tidbits and stats.
As near as I can tell, I first stumbled across WU in the autumn of 2008. I was a few years into my writing journey, but at that time carpentry was my main gig. I injured my shoulder earlier in the year, and by the fall I had accepted the fact that it was debilitating to most carpentry undertakings. I considered it a sign that I should finish the first draft of my first trilogy. But while I was recouping I even found typing on a keyboard difficult. Due to my physical limitations I did a ton of reading that year, and I decided I should get caught up on the current standouts in my genre. Which led me to read Jacqueline Carey’s wonderful Kushiel series. Which led me to click on an author interview. The subject was JC, of course. The interviewer and platform? Why, our own Juliet Marillier, right here on WU.
Beyond a fascinating interview, I was immediately intrigued by what I found here, and dove into WU’s backlog of articles and essays. I instantly added a link to WU to my toolbar, and it’s been there ever since. From that moment forward, WU became a daily reading habit. (Not to mention the bonus of discovering and devouring Juliet’s catalog.)
How about a few stats? Important stuff first: did you know that JRR Tolkien/The Lord of the Rings has been mentioned in the body of over 90 essays here on WU? And no, it’s not what you’re thinking—only a small fraction of those mentions are mine. Okay, on to my actual stats. My first essay for WU appeared here almost exactly a decade ago (January 6, 2012), and the one you’re reading now is my 55th contribution. This is my third year as an assistant editor. I was among the first thirty or so members to join the WU FB Group on the day Therese announced it, and had the honor of being a moderator there for over a decade (until very recently—big thanks to Mike Swift for stepping up to take over my duties there). I was also the speculative genre reviewer for Reader Unboxed and hosted a regular ‘community links’ feature in the WU newsletter (both discontinued). My first (and only) time being published in a book was as a contributor to WU’s Author In Progress, and my two appearances on writing conference stages were both as a member of WU panels.
But for me, the WU Effect goes beyond stats and bylines. When I stand back and look at how much WU has meant to me, and what a profound role the site and community have played in my writing journey, I’m truly gobsmacked. That serendipitous google search in 2008 changed my writing life more than any other single thing I can think of.
Oh the cherished gifts I have received. Allow me to list them, won’t you?
Education—Any list of WU’s attributes should have this one at the top. By education I’m referring to more than just the plethora of concrete, useful, accessible craft instruction that can be found here. I have also learned so much about the ins-and-outs of the publishing industry, of course. But more than any of those things, reading and interacting with WU over the years has taught me so much about actually being a writer, and living the writing life.
Daily Inspiration—Has this ever happened to you? You wake up on the day you’ve planned on getting in some writing, and you got nuthin’. No motivation, no clear objective, no idea how to grapple with a current problem. You start your slotted writing time by opening WU, and BOOM. At the very least, you feel reenergized. Or maybe some element of that day’s post gives you a bit of insight, or directs you to some aspect of your WIP that you’re actually excited to work on. At the very best, there’s the phenomenon in which the essay featured that day seems to address, and maybe even solve, the exact problem that’s been hindering you or your work. It’s happened to me so often it’s gone beyond feeling a little spooky. But don’t get me started down the woo-woo path.
Industry Connection—The list of people I’ve met, have gotten acquainted with, or have the honor to call a friend because of WU is a long one indeed. It includes teachers, mentors, editors, agents, and even a publisher or two. Not to mention authors at every stage of accomplishment. Because of WU I’ve come to perceive the publishing industry not just as some vast, abstract monolith, but as a network of people whose most basic shared trait is a love of reading and books. When you think of it that way, is there ever any reason to feel intimidated by the industry? When you think of it that way, can there truly be any reason to feel envy, when we’re all pursuing the same thing? Tell me that’s not a gift.
Connection—This one’s been huge for me. We all know how lonely this gig can be; how overwhelming the goal can seem; how paltry our efforts to tell a story that matters can feel. Yes, WU has loomed large in my having found connection and community with other writers. But more than that, some of my dearest and most meaningful–and enduring–friendships have come of it. And the connection point is right here, in what is for me, the biggest little writerly corner of the internet.
This is a partial list, of course. But as I jotted ideas for it, I realized there is a particularly noteworthy gift I’ve gained through my association with Writer Unboxed. It’s one I’ve only recently acknowledged, and lately I’ve been feeling like it’s an essential ingredient to my writing life. One that had been missing and that I now see will help to define what writing success looks like for me. Hopefully it can be a similarly essential ingredient for you, too.
The Missing Ingredient
This particular gift is a little difficult for me to talk about. The reason is that it takes no small amount of it to publicly say I have any at all. If you read my last post here, just before Christmas, you might recall that I’ve been feeling much more at peace with who I am as a writer, and this gift lies at the very core of that feeling. Indeed, it was in response to the essay that Therese very kindly pointed it out to me by mentioning that she was glad to see “my newfound confidence.”
Confidence can be a weird thing to attribute to oneself. I mean, humility is a virtue I admire and aspire to. Besides that (or maybe because of it), one of the reoccurring themes of my work is the sin of overconfidence, and how it can easily lead to hubris. Still, I can see that confidence is a virtue that can take one to the next level as a writer.
Today I’m more confident than ever that I’m writing what I am meant to write, in the way it’s meant to be written. I’m confident that the time has come to publish my first trilogy. I feel like this newfound confidence is built on a solid foundation because I know I’ve put the work in, and that I’ll never shy away from continuing to do so. I have reached the point where I’m certain that additional investment in revision of this particular story will offer a diminishing return.
With an eye to maintaining a level of humility, I remain mindful of what my confidence is not about. It is not an untethered belief that I will find any sort of publishing success in the form of sales, or readers, or acclaim. It’s not about whether anyone who finds their way to my work will even enjoy it, let alone connect well enough to recommend it. In fact, I’ve become confident that those things will not make or break me as a writer. I’m confident that I will continue to tell my stories in spite of these things, whatever the outcome.
It’s through my association with you that I’ve gained this gift. In regard to my writing journey, I have not always been Mr. Bright Side. If you were to sample the long arc of my essays here, you’d see it. I wasn’t exactly a pessimist, but there was a time when I projected a pretty dim outlook for myself. Through my WU essays, through our correspondence in the comments and via conferences and even in social media, I have come to trust myself as a writer.
Through my tenure and association with WU, I have come to recognize that I don’t need permission to tell my truth. I found my way first to an ability to ignore self-doubt, and then to mostly defeating it. Well, on the page, at least. We all have our days, right? But confidence is born of a core belief, not just in oneself but in what one creates. It’s a belief that gets hardened by the fires of commitment and persistence.
We’re In This Together
There’s a secret I’ve gleaned about confidence: You already have it. Yeah, you. I know because you’re here. We share the core belief I describe above. It takes a respectable amount of confidence just to decide that you have a story inside of you, and even more to commit to setting that story down in writing. Your core belief may or may not need hardening, but it’s there.
It’s a gift because it frees us from needing permission or validation to tell our truth in our chosen format. The confidence of our commitment can restore the joy we originally found, when we took those first wondrous steps into the life of the storyteller. We can stride forward with the assurance that we don’t need anyone or anything else in order to explore our passion and to share it.
I titled this piece WU’s Greatest Gift in the realization that all of the gifts that I’ve listed combine to offer us the joy and peace I spoke about last month. Through diligent study and practice; through seeing that our fellow writers and all of those involved in publishing are bound by a love of books, thereby shedding intimidation and envy; through our connection and community—through the enduring habit and resolve that we forge together, and a commitment to lifting one another up, we can be confident that we have found our calling.
I’m ready to accept that I’m confident. Are you?
What brought you to WU? Are there gifts that I haven’t mentioned? Do you acknowledge that you already have confidence?
