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| Me, hard at work in a spare room, circa 1980. © Lloyd Lemons |
(This was a story that came out of a contest from Kofi.com. The instructions were to write an encouraging letter to yourself, that will propel you into the future with confidence. Good therapy yes, but, no, I didn't win.)
Words of Encouragement to Me
Hey you! What are you doing? Staring at the blank screen? That will accomplish nothing. You’ve got to put some words down. It doesn’t matter if they make much sense at this moment, just connect your brain with your hands and write down word after word and sentence after sentence. You’ll get to where you need to be, trust me.
When you started this gig 40+ years ago, you had grand dreams! You wanted to write things to make people think. To move them emotionally. You didn’t let your lack of a literary education hold you back. You knew things, and you wanted to share those things with the world. You were bold, remember, or was it just youthful naivety?
You had some early success, remember? And it was exhilarating! More than a dozen stories were published right off, and it felt great, but it didn’t last. There were queries and pitches galore, but nothing seemed to connect. It was beyond discouraging. As a young man, it was soul-crushing.
But you adapted, and that’s how you survived.
You thought, “I love business, so I’ll approach businesses with the idea that I could write their newsletters and marketing messages.”
Think about what you did! You studied direct marketing principles relentlessly, and it paid off. Requests for your writing abilities started with people you knew and grew into a nice little business. Soon, you were writing all sorts of material for business accounts around the US, and beyond. You were back in the saddle, right?
Well, sort of. It wasn’t necessarily the kind of writing you had dreams of doing, but it kept you creating with words and ideas while it helped pay the bills.
Forty-plus years passed. (Man, how time can get away from a family man!) There were many ups and downs throughout the years, and you kept pushing forward.
Then the pandemic happened.
All your clients slowed their operations to a crawl. Assignments dried up in a matter of weeks. And, at 67 years of age, new prospects didn’t want to hear how an old guy had the experience to produce good results.
But you weren’t prepared to retire, financially, intellectually, or emotionally. Medical concerns became the next speed bump to negotiate. And they’ve been tenacious.
But don’t be too hard on yourself. You’ve had a tough time these past five or six years, indeed, since the very beginning.
And now? Well, a light bulb has gone off.
“People still read stories to improve their lives,” you thought. “I have much more experience as a human than I did many years ago, and I’ve always been flexible and highly adaptive. I’ll return to my original dream of writing stories for curious people. I can still make this work!”
Yes, you started down this path more than two years ago, and it hasn’t blossomed like your earlier endeavor. What will you do now?
Here’s a hint.
Now, you retool, sit down at the blank screen, and start putting words and ideas down for others to consume, and do it daily. Yes, it’s starting over, and no, it won’t be easy, but you can do it.
I have faith in you.
Sincerely, Me