Vote For Yourself, In Writing and In Life
Vote For Yourself, In Writing and In Life
A Love Letter
Welcome to the first Abundant Writer newsletter from our new home at Substack! I hope you can will agree how much better this newsletter looks and how much easier it is to read than the ones from MailChimp. (And look! An actual photo!) You’ll also be getting a mid-week post from me on Wednesdays. I’m finishing up my Preptober classes for Nanowrimo (and other novel writers) and that posts on Friday and will be available to free subscribers for one week. But to be clear, your Sunday newsletter subscription will continue to be free and land in your inbox as long as you continue to subscribe. You can access it on my Substack home page under the Love Letters link.
Hello my loverlys,
I was going through some old papers and writing in my journal recently in a sort of self-inquiry-ish type process and remembered something, a funny story from my youth. Funny-sad story, I guess. Don’t worry, no animals die!
When I was in fifth grade, or maybe sixth, I ran for class president. (Looking back now, I have no idea why. Politics, even at the elementary school class level, is not something I’ve ever aspired to participate in.) I think we started with a whole slate of candidates and it got narrowed down to two. Despite the fact I was a lumpy, ungainly child, I was one of the finalists. For the life of me, I cannot remember who that other student was, or if they were a girl or a boy. (In those days, we only had two genders.)
Each of us candidates ran campaigns, complete with posters and speeches and the like. I remember my cousin Eddie was visiting from California and he helped me with my speech. (I have a whole heap of cousins, like twenty or more and I’m about the youngest of the bunch.) But here’s the important part—that unremembered student, my competitor, and I struck a deal: we would each vote for the other person.
Well, long story short and maybe you see where this is going. I lost. By one vote. And I realized: the other student didn’t vote for me. They broke their promise and voted for themselves. And if I had voted for myself, I would have won. Or we would have tied—don’t make me do the math! Doesn’t matter because the moral of the story remains the same: vote for yourself. If I had voted for myself back then, maybe I’d be president right now. I jest, I jest. But at the very least, it would have established a pattern different from the one I struggled with for many years.
Which was not voting for myself. Not having the confidence to do things I desperately wanted to do. Not having the confidence to speak up for my writing, such as the time I queried a magazine, got an okay, but never wrote the article. Or the time I should have demanded requested information like submission lists from my agent but stayed quiet. Or the times time I backed off from marketing myself because I got scared.
It's too late to undo those actions of past me, but future me does not need to follow this same path. And neither does future you, should this story resonate with you in any way. I’m glad I remembered this story because now I can use it to propel me forward. From now on, I vote for myself in my writing and in my life. And I hope you will vote for yourself, too. Even if we are running against each other! (Except we aren’t. Writers support each other, not compete.)
Love, light and good writing,
Charlotte
P.S. Please, please do hit reply and let me know what you’ve been up to. How is the writing going for you? Are you voting for yourself? And, look below. You can also comment and then we can all chat! Whichever way you choose, I’d love to hear from you.
P.P.S. Email, or comment, and let me know what you think about our new digs!
Books
A December to Remember by Jenny Bayliss. Amazon Bookshop. Here’s the book’s logline: Three bickering half-sisters, one unique antiques shop. the coziest holiday season of their lives. The book opens with the funeral of the sisters’ unique, to say the least, father. Think pagans, witches and druids in full regalia, all of his former lovers sharing notes in the pub while the sisters cringe. It’s pretty fun, and she’s one of my favorites. Update: Loved it.
I just finished reading it before posting this and now I’m in that wonderful between-books phase. I have so many on my TBR list and it’s pure pleasure to ponder them all.
Articles and Resources
Not writing related, sorry not sorry. Brown bear live cam from Alaska (the cameras are remote so when they go out they put on highlights).
On becoming who you are—lots of great bits for writers in here and I totally agree with his take on why the Enneagram is becoming more popular.
What if this were easy?
When stuck in a scene, look around.
Events
Workshops in England, France, and Italy next year. Woot woot! Take your pick, though spaces are going fast. More info here.