As those of us in the U.S. prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving, we’re taking a moment to stop and appreciate the very thing that drove us to create Career Authors—and drew you here to read it—our shared love of writing.
Sometimes, in the stress of submissions or details of day planners, we can almost lose sight of it… how amazing it is to have a way with words, a creative drive fueled by pure passion. Our team of contributing editors put our heads together and came away feeling inspired anew—and we wish the same for you. Here are our Top 10 Reasons to Be Grateful You’re a Writer.
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Storytelling is in our bones.
When we posed this question to our contributing editor team—Why are you most grateful to be a writer?—it got our Hank Phillippi Ryan thinking.
“I started unraveling my own story, thinking about why I wanted to do anything that I ever wanted to do,” she says. “I first wanted to be a disc jockey, more than anything. And what was that? Broadcasting musical stories, to entertain and transport and share. Then I wanted to be, briefly, a rock singer. Same thing! Then an actor. Same thing… Telling stories. Sharing stories. Entertaining.
“Eventually, as an adult, I became a reporter. And what was that? Exactly the same thing! Telling stories. True ones, yes, but writing stories that are compelling and unique and entertaining and life-changing. And sharing them. I guess, bottom line, I love telling stories, and searching for more riveting ways to tell them, and challenging myself to write better ones. Plus now, as a novelist, I don’t have to remember lines, or carry a tune, and I can even make stuff up. Imagining, creating, sharing, entertaining. Got to love it.”
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We’re low-tech.
This might sound simple, but it’s increasingly rare. Better yet, it makes us low maintenance and low budget, too. No fancy equipment required. If the wi-fi goes down, we can pick up paper and pencil and carry on.
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The dress code: anything goes.
Write in pajamas? Sure! Poolside in a swimsuit? Why not? Dress as one of your characters to harness creative flow? Worth a try (no one has to know!). And a T-shirt from your favorite indie bookstore is perfectly acceptable “business attire,” even for your literary event calendar.
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We’re part of the huge, warm, talented, welcoming #writingcommunity…
… where those who achieve success almost always turn right around and offer the writer behind them a hand up. Our own Jessica Strawser has seen this firsthand from both sides of the desk, as a novelist and an editor both. “Every day we’re floored by your good nature, good humor, grace under pressure, and willingness to learn from one another. Studies prove that avid readers are more empathetic, compassionate humans, but that could never be true if the writers behind those stories did not feel those same qualities just as deeply. Books can be life-changing, which means every single writer has the power to change someone’s life. What a gift—one we never, ever take for granted.”
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No shared Office Space.
We do need to write standout pitch letters, but at least we don’t have to bother remembering cover sheets on our TPS reports. Hmmm, yeeeeah. That would be great.
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Instead: Sacred space.
Our team’s literary agent and mystery novelist Paula Munier says this one best: “For me writing is a way of making sense of the world. I don’t really know what I think until I write it and I certainly don’t know what I feel until I write it. I tend to live in my head; writing, especially writing fiction, has taught me to drop from my head to my heart. Any self-awareness I have stems from my ability to write out my thoughts and feelings in stories. There are 1 million other reasons that being a writer is fabulous, most important among them being the company of other writers, but ultimately, writing is about the writer and the page. And what happens in that sacred space between the writer and the page is, for me, the best part of being a writer.”
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Built-in excuses to eavesdrop.
No shame in tuning our ears to interesting conversations in coffee shops and on airplanes! It’s field research for writing realistic dialogue. (Story ideas, too!)
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Highly enjoyable business expenses.
Research trip, anyone?
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We can step outside of ourselves.
“I’m grateful to be a writer because it affords me the opportunity to live multiple lives vicariously through the characters in my novels,” says our resident military thriller writer Brian Andrews. “Forty some odd years ago, my soul woke up in this body at the time and place and family of fate’s choosing, but thanks to the gift of imagination I have the freedom to imagine living countless different lives. Writers invented virtual reality centuries before the term was coined… How cool is that to wrap your head around?!”
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We appreciate that every day is a blank page.
Another chance to get creative. To write the next smash bestseller, or just a really heartfelt thank-you note. Another chance to get it right.
We at Career Authors are so grateful you’ve trusted us to be a part of your writing and publishing journey. Happy Thanksgiving, friends.
