This is part four in a four-part series on the seasons of your writing career, which is also the organizing principle I used in The Writer’s Workout. See post one here, if you missed it.
So now, let’s talk about summer. If you missed my post about the spring of a writing career, click here.
The Summer of Your Career
The summer of your writing career may feel more like a really long heatwave.
Brutal. Hard. Too much heat. No escape from all the bright light.
It’s also the time when writers experience a big wake up call that goes something like this: Whoa, this whole writing thing is a lot harder than I expected. Dang. Other people make it look so easy. Am I really cut out for this?
Summer is the season when a writer’s fantasies of easy success and quick financial gain get dashed and melted. Kind of like that popsicle up there.
But all of this disenchantment can serve a purpose. First of all it sorts the adults from the children. Expecting a writing career to be easy just because you’d like it to be, is the stuff that childhood fantasies are made of.
Oh, and it also makes for a good media story, later, after you’ve worked extremely hard but you don’t want to draw anyone’s attention to that.
Although challenging, the summer phase of a writing career is like an initiation of sorts. Beginners luck is over. Now there’s just thoughtful planning and conscientious choices to move you forward, step by step, row by row. This may not feel like the good news it actually is. After all, you got this far, didn’t you?
Summer is about minding what you have started and making sure that you continue to have steady growth. You will surely have your parched, crabby, impatient days. You will also have plenty of days when you are not quite sure how to proceed.
And that’s where The Writer’s Workout can really help. I hope, after you read it that you will never again wonder if any other writer ever survived the summer of their discontent. They did. And you will, too, if you stay with it.
The Writer’s Workout will glean plenty of helpful ideas to get you through the long, dry patches and keep your career lush and flourishing. You can learn more about the book here.
If you like what you’ve read here, be sure to sign up for The Prosperous Writer ezine to claim your free gift and qualify for exclusive discounts on Christina Katz products.
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