Dear Writer: It's Okay

The writing world is an amazing one full of words and beauty and books.

But it can also feel isolated as we write by ourselves or competitive as we look at the publishing market or inadequate as we compare our writing to others.

Below is a letter that I wrote to you, to me, to any and every writer struggling with comparison and worth. I hope it lightens your load a little. *hugs*

Dear Writer,

It's okay if you haven't written today.

It's okay if you haven't written this week. 

It's okay if you haven't written this month.

It's okay if the last time you put words down on paper was last year or even before that.

Your value as a person does not come from word count.

Your value as a person does not come from how many books you've written.

Your value as a person does not come from the way you outline or how "productive" you are or whether you’re a plotter or pantser. 

Your value as a person doesn't even come from your identity as a writer.

Being a writer is an amazing thing but if one day, you lost the ability to type, to read, to imagine, or to write, you would still have value. You would still be a worthy of the space you take up, the words you use and throw out into the world. You would still be valued and loved.

Dear, Writer: it's okay.

You ask me how I know. Some days I wonder too. With everything going on around us, I wonder if my words matter and I wonder if I never wrote a word again, if I would matter.

But I know the Author and Creator of the Universe and everything in it. And He made you. He made me. And that, my dear writer, is why you matter, why you have value, why it's okay if the words don't always work.

So if you wrote a thousand words today or just one, it’s okay. Being a writer is powerful and magical but being a masterpiece of God is too.

It’s going to be okay.

Your fellow writer, K.J. Haakenson