I’m about to get uncommonly sincere for a minute, so brace yourselves.
Maybe grab a tissue. Or a bourbon. Or both. No judgment here.
So there I was, having my usual 3 AM existential crisis about deadlines and word counts, when something weird happened.
No, I didn’t get visited by three ghosts. That’s a different story, and frankly, those ghosts still owe me money for writing consultation.
I started thinking about George Bailey (you know, from “It’s a Wonderful Life” yes, I watch old movies, fight me), and how that poor bastard had to literally almost die to realise he wasn’t actually a failure.
And it hit me harder than that time I tried to caffeinate my caffeine.
We’re all so busy building our little writing empires, cranking out words like we’re being chased by zombified literary agents, that sometimes we forget about the actual humans who put up with our weird-ass creative processes and our own wild personality.
You know who I mean…
The partner who brings you coffee while you’re mid-chapter-crisis
The friend who still invites you places even though you’re “almost done with this draft” (narrator: they were not almost done)
The family who pretends to understand why you need to talk about your fictional characters like they’re real people
The dog who sits at your feet while you rant about plot holes
The cat who only walks across your keyboard MOST of the time instead of ALL the time
The thing is, your words matter. Your stories matter. But so do the people who make it possible for you to tell them.
So as we wrap up this dumpster fire of a year (2024, you’ve been weird, man), maybe take a minute. Look around. Thank the people who deal with your creative chaos. Hug them if they’re huggers. Send them a weird gif if they’re not.
Because while we’re all out here trying to create worlds and birth stories and fight the good fight against what ever big tech will throw at us in 2025, these people are creating something too…
A space where we can be our strange, creative, possibly unhinged selves.
And that’s worth more than any wordcount.
Don’t worry. I’m not going soft on you. Tomorrow I’ll be back to my regular programming of caffeine-fuelled rants about proper semicolon usage and why squirrels are probably government spies. But for tonight, maybe just… appreciate your people.
And if you’re feeling lonely in your creative cave, remember. You’ve got me and this whole community of equally weird word-nerds right here.
We might be disaster-pandas, but we’re YOUR disaster-pandas.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ve got something in my eye. Probably coffee grounds. Definitely not tears.
And again. I really do appreciate you for sticking around and reading these emails. I’m glad you find them interesting, entertaining and educational. I’ll be back to the regular scheduled anarchy soon…
Stephen Walker
It’s a wonderful life – which I’ve probably watched every Christmas for the last 25+ years
P.S. Yes, I wrote this without pants, but I did put on a festive hat. Growth eh?