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because words matter

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The Writing Link

  • kdcarlsonwrites
  • Jul 15, 2024
  • 2 min read

As a writer, I love what I do. It's what happens after I write that gets my cortisol roiling — making submissions. It's a horrible word, submission. It has the air of giving over, giving in, maybe even giving up. But it is the only way to get my work into the world. I have to let other people see it and make their own judgements for my words to have life.


Once, I spent two hours believing I'd been rejected from a workshop. In that two hours, I ran through my classic litany of self-flagellation, beginning and ending with — I suck. I was, to use a Britishism, gutted. As it turned out, I was accepted into the workshop but, thanks to the mysteries of the internet, I'd received a tardy verification of my acceptance.


I was relieved, delighted, overjoyed and infused with refreshed confidence in my work when I received the acceptance note. Which made me realize just how reliant I have become on the approval of others — the kiss of death in any creative endeavor. Is it possible that my work transformed into something fabulous over those two hours of devastation? No. My work is my work, and it's only as good as I can make it at any given point in time. The only thing that had transformed was my feelings about my work, which were wickedly connected to whatever others were saying about it.


Take away: Enough worrying about whatever others might say. Time to do the work to the best of my ability and let it go. Time to literally submit to whatever happens without attaching my feelings of worth to the outcome. To connect with other human beings, I have to risk submission.  Now, all I have to do is learn to submit without putting my head under the guillotine along with my work!

 
 
 
  • kdcarlsonwrites
  • Jul 13, 2024
  • 1 min read

Updated: Jul 15, 2024

I've always had a hard time making decisions. Choosing one thing too often means declining another, while my natural proclivity is to choose the paths that keep the route to other paths open. Which may explain my penchant for writing. As a writer, I can imagine myself into an endless number of paths. Sometimes, I write articles about subjects I can’t resist (for me, mostly art and artists), and sometimes I capture stories and poems about moments and places and people that I don’t want to forget. And sometimes, I just want to create some juicy roles that actors will want to play. The truth is, I’ve never been able to pick a genre, stick with it, and build a writerly identity around it. As a result, I’ve pursued a wide variety of writing projects — from playwriting and poetry to fiction and screenwriting — none of which I can imagine abandoning in order to build a singular platform or define my branding. Instead, I have decided to claim this wee outpost in the wilderness, where I can pick up ideas and bring them home to see what I might make of them. If you're intrigued by scenic detours and obsessed with points of interest, I'd love your company on the journey.

 
 
 
  • kdcarlsonwrites
  • Jun 18, 2024
  • 1 min read

Updated: Jul 15, 2024

If you’re a writer called to participate in this crazy solitary sport, please keep the faith

— in the muses and their source, in the wonder of the ordinary, in the daily practice,

in your fellow writers, and in the deep belief that words have power to change lives, including our own. If you’re not a writer (yet), thank you for being a reader. The world needs more of you.

 
 
 
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