Why Writers Should be Supremely Grateful #atozchallenge #writer

Recently, an article by Katherine Bolger Hyde got me thinking: Writers should be the most grateful people in the world. Not necessarily the happiest (we’re too sensitive for that). And not the richest (though it would be nice to be that, too)

But we should definitely be the most grateful. Because we get to hang out with some of the coolest people in real life (other writers and readers), even if it’s only through the internet. We get to be best friends and confidants of some of the most interesting and intriguing people in fiction that (hopefully) have ever existed.

And, we get to carry on a delightful childhood pastime–using our imagination to create worlds, stories, and characters–and we get to call it our career. Our calling. Our profession. We make money from it (hopefully), and even if it doesn’t pay all our bills, we get to do what most people only dream of. Through our characters and stories, we get to life more than one life at the same time.

Yes, there are times when we get frustrated. There are times when “writing doesn’t pay” and when we can’t figure out what to write next, when words won’t come and bills and refusals keep showing up and it seems like we’ll never succeed.

But we still get to play around in the same literary sandbox as Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, Tolstoy, Lewis, Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, and Stephen King. We get to part of the same heritage, creating (a form) of the same art.

Even when life gets us down, we ought to be up…just because we’re writers. 🙂

Copyright 2016 Andrea Lundgren

Photo by Miniperium, Creative Commons