February 6, 2026
When I retired from my last regular job in communications, my wonderful colleagues sent me off with a nice dinner, lots of shared memories, and best of all, a toolkit for my new writing career. It includes all this:
- A little notebook, which any writer worth their salt should keep within reach.
- A box of top-quality pencils to go with the notebook. (Also suitable for chewing on when I get stuck.)
- Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Some people question its embrace of “shitty first drafts,” but as a rookie I found it to be an important lesson: get the story down, then revise the hell out of it.
- An emotional thesaurus that matches feelings, gestures, and actions to a character’s state of mind. Under Peacefulness, for example, there’s “an unforced laugh” and “a satisfied sigh.” These days it’s tough not to drop “an icy glare” and “pounding fists” on every page.
As useful as these gifts are, I’ve learned that a writer needs a few more tools, which can’t be found at Home Depot. Item first: a suit of mental armor for the hundred years’ war of submissions followed by rejections, rejections, rejections. A few months can feel like a gazillion years when you’re lobbing queries toward the high castle of PUBLICATION and hearing only silence from the agents and editors inside. The armor must be thick enough to fend off the slings and arrows of lousy reviews, readers’ changing tastes, and the often painful realities of the industry.
Item second: a butt that can stay in the chair indefinitely without kvetching. It took me a while to understand how long and crooked a road I’d have to travel to get from a Lamott draft to a polished, pitch-ready product. It doesn’t matter if you write commercial potboilers or literary fiction, torrid romance or terrifying dystopia, short stories or heavyweight tomes. Some days the words come easily: other times they’re more elusive than a Republican with a conscience. So accessorize that keister with a mind that won’t wander off to X or Insta (unless you’re pushing your own books and brand).
The task also demands unlimited patience and unflagging confidence. Add to that a love of learning, both the craft of writing and the mechanics of marketing and publishing. You’ll need the ability to network with and support other authors, give and accept honest criticism.
A generous heart goes a long way. So does a personality that makes the social / promotional aspect of the business bearable if not loads of fun. For a recovering introvert like me, that part is sometimes hard but is necessary. If a literary recluse like Harper Lee were around today, her agent would be begging her to do a few podcasts and blast out videos on TikTok. (Personally, I’d pay to hear her talk about To Kill a Mockingbird and helping Truman Capote research In Cold Blood.)
My armor feels cold and creaky at times when nobody seems to want what I’ve written and I’m not inspired to turn out anything new. These doldrums had me pretty discouraged a few weeks ago – then came an idea for a story. I’m only halfway through the abysmal, rotten, deplorable, schlocky, pathetic first draft. However, as you can see, my thesaurus is in fine shape and my tuchus is settling in for the long haul. Hopefully you’ll be able to read the piece fairly soon alongside my other stories.