I've been vacillating between platforms. I know, I know — it doesn't quite matter which platform you use, as long as you use it consistently, post daily, cross-reference sometimes — "your audience will come."
I've been caught in decision paralysis — how best to share my writing as I query my novel to literary agents and continue to write poems, letters, diary entries...
I hesitate to start my next novel in The Montevar Series before getting any feedback on my first. They say: don't write a series until you can publish the first book. It makes sense. I know. But the series is a compulsion. The stories are in me. I believe in them that much, that I would write and write and write.
The chances of getting a literary agent are 1 in 6,000 — they say. I don't even like to say "getting" a literary agent. That feels too transactional, too acquisitional (not a word!). I know selling a book is about selling a book. I get it. But there's a human behind most things. Many humans. My book which is about so many things, explores really the one theme — grief. And it seems natural, now, that I would go through a grieving process as my book gets rejected. I'm not a stranger to rejection, being a writer, an actor, a woman, a being who believes in compassion and human dignity. But I will never stop writing. Grief changes. It can become joy. It can be our greatest strength, in the end.
So in the midst of contradiction — (never stop writing! and decision paralysis) — I've decided to start publishing on Substack, excerpts from some of the letters I write. I have permission to publish these (they are my own writing, but in correspondence) and I will protect everyone's identity, where necessary, by using false initials.
They read like diary entries, so I'm calling it "Diary For a Friend." That seems right. Simple enough. Easy to remember.
We talk often about spirituality and landscape, to the littlest things in life. I hope they will be interesting to you. If not, you don't have to read, or subscribe. That's one of the beauties (and dangers) of the internet. You can opt-out, turn your attention elsewhere. That's fine with me. I would hope that you stay only because you find just the slightest bit of value or comfort in the words.
I hope I can create a safe place. That's all I've ever wanted. That's all I've been searching for — a safe place to call home. It's been a running theme for years that one of the safest places I know exists in words, in language. It's a slippery slope, I know, between safety and danger these days — language is powerful, manipulated, words matter, intentions matter, and even then, they are so easy to misunderstand, or understand in a different way.
But for now, I'm pushing back against decision paralysis first and foremost.
So I hope you'll join me on Substack if you have a moment in your day. I'll continue posting here until something changes, if it no longer makes sense, etc. We'll see - it's a process.
♥︎ H