The most important thing you can do: Take a stand

It has taken me 20+ years of writing seriously to understand what is, for this writer, far more essential than having a platform, knowing my audience, or targeting particular publications. At the root of all this strategic stuff–which is of great importance, but a little later–is knowing where I stand as a writer and as a person.

What does this mean, and how does a writer do it? I'll explain.

Over the years, my writing was a kite on the winds of influence, opinion and inner disorientation. First, I wrote to survive. Later, I wrote to give service and make connections — made possible through blogging and publishing. Though I'd defined all of the strategic stuff mentioned above (and I love the strategic stuff), there was still a somewhat shapeless self roaming around within my many PowerPoints of carefully articulated goals. This writer self, I can see now, was still seeking the right landing pad that was not reachable through goals and platforms, and she hadn't quite found it.

It was only through my divorce journey and as I started writing content for Hopeful Divorce that I came to my latest layer of understanding about what it means to find one's authority as a person and as a writer. I made a choice about how I intended to move through my divorce. My guiding principles were: emotional honesty, self-responsibility and optimism. I made a decision that the writing I did would be processed through these filters, as well, with emotional truths winning out over optimism when the two were profoundly in conflict. In so doing, I understood for the first time that this was more than a short-term survival strategy or a writing maneuver: these were the guiding principles of my life.

Bingo. With this realization, my focus became exact as a penpoint. Now, I was writing to first define and then learn how to occupy an identity and a context that had significance for me. Almost as if I were one of those cartoon people standing in a blank space and then drawing in the house and garden around me. Through this lens, everything that I'd done and written in my life had new meaning and relevance. Whatever my platform might be or the publications that lined its imaginary shelves, I know I can count on myself to show up on the page in a way that is respectful of my own pain and others, focused on the opportunities and gifts that such agonies bring, and with love for the ever-floundering, ever-flawed, ever-extraordinary human condition.

It's almost as if I've stumbled upon the secret fountain of my soul that's been the water source of my life all this time but was, unnamed, unreachable. Today, I name this soul fountain: Grace. I take a stand for grace. I live and write to occupy the space where all that happens is welcome, all who enter are welcome, and all that is available to me is not only within reach but deeply appreciated.

What do you take a stand for in your life and in your writing, and how does it change everything to say so?

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