Unexpected validation hits different. I don't usually anticipate affirmation in my inbox. But that's exactly what happened this morning when I was—you guessed it—drinking my coffee.
As a writer pursuing more writing, lately I've been thinking a lot about what I have to say. That's never really been my problem, though. I'm an observer who gets curious about what takes place... pulling that thread goes for miles. But I've always struggled with the how of what I want to say: do I talk to you or pretend you're not there? Should I write songs, books, blogs?
I used to think about all of this a lot.
While I don't so much anymore, I do wonder about possible distribution options—specifically, those in print. A pile of insecurity about my unconventional background has kept me from exploring that sooner. It's the kind that sounds like "who am I to think I could write a bestselling book?"
So this morning, while sipping and scrolling through emails, I came across a new dispatch from Linda Caroll called The magic of self-taught writers. In it, she recounts a long list of award-winning authors who come from unconventional backgrounds.
Usually, I'm the one looking for reframes, but this reframe found me: my greatest strengths are the twists and turns that taught me to find my way. Trying to format them to be digestible is just the biggest disservice I could do to myself.
I've been downplaying the parts of myself that set me apart. I really needed that reminder. If you could, too, go read Linda's post.
Here's a few clipped highlights:
"Mary Oliver [...] enrolled in Ohio State but dropped out. Enrolled in Vassar, but dropped out there, too. And yet somehow, she won a Pulitzer for her writing...
Maya Angelou dropped out of high school and worked a lot of crazy jobs like cook, waitress, singer, dancer, actress, and streetcar conductor before she published her first book at age forty one...
John Steinbeck enrolled in Stanford after high school but dropped out... Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Bukowski, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Cormac McCarthy and Toni Morrison. Same story. Everyone of them started college and dropped out. Had to go get a job to pay the bills. Faulkner, too, and then he won two Pulitzers...
T.S. Eliot was a banker. John Grisham worked, plumbing, and construction before going into law... Harper Lee dropped out of law school. Agatha Christie was a nurse and apothecary assistant. Khaled Hosseini, Anton Chekhov, Arthur Conan Doyle and Michael Crichton were all physicians..."
What about yourself have you been downplaying that you could embrace more?
onward.
-dmac