12 Steps for Writers

This is an Insecure Post



[This post is ALSO meant to be lighthearted and fun and in no way diminish the important role the AA 12 Steps play in the lives of many. I have loved ones alive because of them, so no disrespect intended]

1.  We admit we are powerless over the publishing industry. That it was making our lives unmanageable. 

2.  We came to believe a calling greater than publishing could restore us to sanity. 

3.  We made a decision to be true to our inner writer and turn our lives over to the writer we could be. 

4.  We made a fearless searching inventory of the mistakes we were making in both writing and publishing. 

5.   We admitted to our inner writer and our blog rolls the exact nature of our wrongs. 

6.  We were entirely ready to turn our inner writer over to a writing improvement process. 

7.  We humbly asked peers and beta readers to give us honest feedback and where we fell deficient committed to workshops and exercises to improve. 

8.  We made a list of all the idiot things we'd done in futile attempts at publishing and became willing to learn from them. 

9.  We erased evidence from the internet wherever possible and outed ourselves where it wasn't so we could at least claim to know better now. 

10.  We continued to take personal inventory and when we made mistakes, admitted and fixed them. 

11.  We sought through writing words and sentences and stories to improve our inner writer, making a conscious effort to be our best writer self, each day better than the day before. 

12.Having a writerly awakening because of these steps we carried them forth to other writers.

Don't worry about the publishing. Worry about the writing. The rest will come.





So there... a little goofy, but it occurred to me last night that what has been very hardest on my love of writing and has dampened my drive and my work ethic about it is my pursuit of publishing. I mean I want to publish. But I want to love writing more, and I think I write better when I let go a bit of what I think will sell, because apparently I know nothing.



Now go visit some OTHER insecure writers!!!