Dear Me

Dear Me,

It is with a great disdain that I profess to write you this letter. I believe it to be a long time coming for all I have seen in this past year your disbelief in yourself is still prevalent. I had hoped that once you truly understood the beauty of what it is you are doing you would indulge and thus believe in your own ambition, suffice to say this did not plan out how I had hoped. Your disregard for yourself and for your dreams has caused me to write this, and it is with great benevolence that I am now trying to persuade you otherwise.

Let me begin where it is worthwhile to begin. First you must understand that my belief in your talent and your ability is not out of greed or personal gains. Mostly I believe in you because you believe no-one does. I need to make this point clear so as to assure you that my intentions in helping you better yourself are completely altruistic. I seek to remind you of how you came to be the person you are and why you are doing the things you do.

It was on a warm day several years ago that the idea of writing first came to you. You were in a lecture at University and you were listening intently to the lecturer speak with enticing prose about the inclusion of children with disabilities into a mainstream classroom. I remember as I sat there with you as you began jotting furiously onto your paper every idea that came to mind. Your first sets of ideas were all children’s books and you completed a fair few of them before I somehow convinced you that you had the potential to write longer stories. You began dabbling in short stories, poems and eventually novels. You experimented with biographies and fiction, fantasy and suspense; till you found something you could call your own. I must say I was filled with pride at seeing you light up whenever you wrote something. I say this because it is important for you to remember how it began, the love affair with books and writing.

You embarked on the rarely taken journey of literary intelligence shortly thereafter. And so it began Tolstoy, Melville, Rowling, Austen, Rushdie, Dickens, Tolkien, Heller, Salinger, Huxley, Bronte, Picoult, King, Coehlo. All the classics and all the modern day stories piled themselves up on your shelves awaiting your mind’s imagination. The more you read the more you understood your own style and direction. You are almost half way through your self-created top 100 book list and their effect on your writing is already discernible. It was beautiful to watch as you would move with the effortless fluidity of water from one text to the next, barely taking a breath.

However this is not what my letter is about, my intent being to outline to you not only your achievements thus far, but also your shortcomings. I was disheartened to learn that you had given up on yourself. Your belief in yourself, I saw at that moment, was extremely depleted if not missing completely. I had to step in and show you your next move in order to save us both. You have hid your talent for so many years and now I am urging you not to give up. With a new year you have a new blank slate, 'Tabula Rasa', now write it.

You have already outlined for yourself what you want to happen this year, none of which will happen unless you yourself chose to make it so. Unfortunately I know how hard it is for a new Authoress such as yourself to write more than one story at a time, especially having a deadline in August, as you so rightly remind me. So I come with this message. You can achieve great things with a simple step. Our mind works at a feverishly fast pace and I understand you have many ideas brewing, but lest we forget the ‘Great Novel Disposal’ of 2007. I know what having too much on your plate does to you, so you need to make a choice. You are working on great things right now and it would be a shame to throw them all out because of indecisiveness. Chose one story and write it. You’ll be surprised how much more you will be able to focus and truly commit. I assure you’re your August deadline for having a complete novel is not completely unattainable, you just need to commit to one and put the others on a backburner, so to speak.

I do not think myself superior as to have to give you rules to guide your life by, for I too am just like you, uncertain at times and hasty at others. My only form of assistance or guidance comes with that message, focus on one story at a time, and you will be done whenever you feel it to be complete. Remember, life and the lessons we learn hath no timeframe. I need to be sure that you understand that this is your year and that your belief in yourself will carry you further than anyone else. You need to believe in yourself so that other will too.

I implore you to seek guidance from your fellows on the community you so rightly entrusted with your thoughts. This year, review your fellows and they will review you. Aim for more involvement within the community that will eventuate to hopefully being part of your audience.

Now that I have said what is on my mind, I feel it necessary to outline below in list form a few reminders for the year to come, for I shall return lest your belief and confidence waiver again. So here they are;

• Make a choice. Chose one novel to write and write it. You are already 15,000 words into each, so your choice will only further assist you to meet that August deadline we spoke about.
• Review your peers, for it is there opinion that matters and not the critics. Aim for at least 10 reviews a month, but I beseech you to speak as you would want to be spoken to.
• Do your research on agents and publishers, for it is they who will hold your work and believe in it. Know what you want to get yourself into.
• Finally, read. Complete your top 100. Read new genres, short stories, poetry. Read things you normally wouldn’t have read before, for it will make your decisions all the more informed.

I understand that it may be difficult for you to set aside time to actually write at all. You may be working everyday from nine till six and you may be keeping yourself fit four times a week, which all in all are great things, but you need time for the one thing that makes you yourself. Although you may be looking out for your physical health and well-being, do not underestimate the depletion of your intellectual health and well-being. Keeping your mind strong requires working it out.

This time next year, you will be a different person, having read and written new things. I am eager to get to know the more informed, confident and boisterous Authoress that you will become.


Thank you and good day

Sincerely,
Myself