The hardest time to make a change is when you’re pretty happy. I mean, why change if everything is good? The answer to this, of course, can range anywhere from the fact that things can get better to the fact that happiness is not the solution to all of life’s problems. For my part, it’s a little bit of both of those things.
Writing words that matter: “Everyone needs a god who looks like them”
I recently became the last person on the planet to read Sue Monk Kidd’s Secret Life of Bees, and fell in love with it in a way I haven’t fallen in love with a book in a long time. It was like discovering The Great Gatsby again for the first time, or To Kill a Mocking Bird, or A Prayer for Owen Meany. It became one of my favorite books, even before I’d read the last page.
As a writer, these experiences of falling in love with a book are particularly overwhelming. Not only is there excitement, infatuation and enjoyment, but also aspiration. I want to write like this. I want to make readers feel this way.
Tiny hypocrisies and better haircuts
Recently, I wrote about the phenomenon of writers complaining about not being paid for their work by saying if you’re a professional writer, producing professional-grade work, you’ll get paid work. Because we do, actually, live in a world where vocational aptitude can and will be rewarded (most of the time). Most people will brains prefer the work of professionals, even when a service technically could be done by an amateur.
Natalie Burg 