There is NO question (Just Do It!)
Here’s why I love working with writers: I love learning new perspectives!
My client Wendy Miller is hard at work on her extraordinary memoir. In one scene, she’s a widow whose friend tells her a new man, Steve, will be joining them for a concert. At first Wendy resists; just by hearing about him, she’s not interested. But she goes anyway. “If given a choice between doing something or not doing it, I should say yes because even if it sucks it gives you something new to talk about.”
Isn’t that an awesome piece of advice?? We’re storytellers! Of course we’re always on the lookout for something new to talk about. And isn’t she right?? That our regrets are often what we were too afraid to do rather than what we did?
Wendy took a chance. (And yes, she married Steve. 🙂 ) Either way she was going to come out with a story. And our lives are stories. Good, bad, heart-wrenching, heartwarming, full of joy, full of sorrow and every nuanced emotion in between. As writers, we get to share those lives (our lives, our characters’ lives) with readers. We get to share our own hard lessons and powerful insights.
Like Wendy. She sums up her philosophy: “I don’t believe in right or wrong decisions particularly. How would we ever know it was wrong because we would never know what it would have been like if we decided differently? So, it is a waste of energy and a pointless exercise.”
Here. Here.