Celebrate Yourself

Hello and Welcome to Sitting in Silence, the newsletter about craft, writing, worry, and joy.

Today’s post is a little different. Mostly, it’s because I’m celebrating. My birthday was last week, and it’s been wonderful spending time with friends and family as well as reflecting on the sweet moments of life. I’m also celebrating because this is the 40^th Sitting in Substack post (excluding premium subscriber extras and interviews). When I started this in January 2022, I didn’t think I’d post so often or that I’d still be doing this, but here I am, so let’s celebrate that too. Third, I’m also celebrating the release of my new book, The American Daughters. It has a NEW RELEASE DATE of February 27, 2024. To celebrate all of this and more, I’ve teamed up with Goodreads to do a huge giveaway of the book. We’re giving away a bunch of advance copies of the book. If you want a chance to win, go here.

Also, I’m teaching my annual online fall Shipman Agency class. It’s two sessions for the price of one on October 4 and October 11. The topic is writing from personal experience (aka writing what you know). We’ll also discuss what happens when writers write characters who are unlike themselves. The link is here. You’ll find the cost is very reasonable. Please share with your writerly friends. A big class makes for a vibrant experience.

As always, thank you to the premium subscribers who make this newsletter possible, especially those who just signed up. I really appreciate your support. This would be impossible to do without your help.

Today, let’s talk about Celebrating Yourself

Hubris is a heck of a drug. Icarus, Victor Frankenstein, Oppenheimer, most politicians, every warlord. Sometimes, people have too much confidence in their abilities. See also the owner of Twitter, I mean, X or whatever it’s called now.

But in writers, I find the opposite is true. Especially among aspiring writers. By aspiring writers, I mean anyone who hasn’t published, or published widely, but also those of us who have published and still have big hopes and dreams.

When I was in grad school for creative writing, I remember meeting the person who would become my best writing school friend. We’re still close. The first time we sat down for coffee, she asked me what I hoped for.

“Hope?” I asked.

“What do you want to happen?” she asked. I looked nonplused for a moment before I responded.

“I want to publish a few stories.”

Bless her soul, she didn’t scoff. But she stared for a moment.

“I want to win a National Book Award.”

Now, I had published nothing at this point. I had never even seen the National Book Award ceremony broadcast, but even naïve me knew that winners of that prize didn’t usually go up to the podium and say, “I knew this would happen and I planned for this to happen.”

Writers tend to be demure, even self-deprecating. I’m just a simple writer myself. I’m barely talented enough to finish this paragraph without breaking some important rule of grammar that I should have been learned at the elementary school I went to.

But here was my talented friend just saying what she wanted. To be clear, she wasn’t predicting anything. She was celebrating the possibility of the life she had decided to pursue. The life of someone who would continue to improve her writing skills and who would publish often and well.

I learned valuable lessons that day: revel in the moment; revel in your possibility; have faith in yourself; celebrate it all whenever you can.

In other words, it’s okay to hope for pie in the sky. And it’s okay to talk to the people you trust about that pie. Describe its flavors and texture. Admit how you’ll feel when you finally taste it.

Who knows, one day you may be sharing a slice with them.