Blast from the Past: 2013 Resolutions

Back in 2013, some of my fellow writers and I did a series of blog tours. We talked about our goals for the new year on each other's blogs. Here is my post on the topic of Creating a Literary Life.

My favorite book on writing, bar none, is Making a Literary Life, by Elizabeth See. The section she wrote on rejection is life changing. I wanted to discuss it today, but I’d have to quote the whole damn thing, and that was way too much copyright infringement, even for me.

Instead, I’m going to discuss her chapter on making the magic, going beyond the words on the page, and into creating the life that makes you shine.

I can’t say it better than she does, so here it is.

Any philanthropist knows that the more money she gives, the more she’ll get back; any volunteer knows that hour spent in a good cause give us golden time. We all know, at some level, that stinginess doesn’t work.

If you start giving away what you want, you give the universe a nudge – you get the cosmic Jell-O trembling.

If you feel you don’t have enough love in your life (no writer, art6ist, human being can exist without love), don’t go around trying to steal it at low bars from impressionable young men and women: Try giving it away, in a blaze of affection, compliments and hugs. Start with your musty old grandma, your lumpy wife, your doltish dad: hugs and compliments- because you have so much love in your bank that you can afford to give it away, lavishly and recklessly.

So what are you waiting for? The best part of the literary and creative life is giving away what you most want.