Dear Writing Diary Entry #2
February 7th, 2024
Dear Writing Diary,
Revising is going well. As I type these words, the sound of rain echoes from outside, and as always, the noise is soothing to my mind along with the silence that comes with this time of night. I’ve been thinking a lot about what success means to me lately. What it should mean to me in the future in order to maintain a healthy mindset and not succumb to disappointment or bitterness. For the longest time, to me success meant being a bestselling author. To having my book read and loved, adored even, by many. But perhaps it shouldn’t be. Perhaps, what should give me the strength and inspiration to write one sentence after another is instead to think about a stranger.
Yes, you read that correctly, a stranger. A future reader. Someone far out there who will someday pick up my book when they’re tired after an exhausting shift at work and seeking just a few hours of escape to another life and another world. Or perhaps someone who is just starting out their Monday morning, who will read my words and find just enough strength in them to make it through a difficult week with a little less difficulty. This is a person whose name I don’t and may never know, someone who I likely will never meet, and yet whose life I hope I might change in some small way for the better.
Now back to revising.
Once again, here’s to seeing what tomorrow holds.
-K
Such good food for thought! I also for a long time thought similarly: that if I wanted to write, I had to become a bestselling author. Pity that that kind of thinking didn’t motivate me to actually write! Now I try to focus more on the process than the outcome, and it makes me happier.