Raise your hand if you’re one of those authors who has acted out a scene when they’re writing it to make sure it would work. Keep it raised if you’ve ever mimed a facial expression at your computer screen to help yourself describe it, typed a questionable search into Google while researching for your work-in-progress, made yourself emotional while building to an important moment in your story, or complained about your characters not wanting to cooperate as if they aren’t living in your head already.
Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. (That last one happened in my most recent writing session, in fact.)
In the right light, we all probably seem just a little out there. And choosing to be an indie author may just take it a step further. Beyond putting our imaginations to paper in order to make a living, we shoulder the rest of the business responsibilities too. We’ve chosen to work long hours under looming deadlines, and though our writing communities and avid readers can make our work far less lonely, in the end, most of us can still boast about the expansive collection of hats we wear on our own.
Yet that just makes the support we receive from those closest to us even more meaningful.
For the authors in this month’s Mindset article, that support is everything from a cup of coffee delivered to a writing desk each morning, to a partner who delved into the publishing business too. For Malorie and Jill Cooper, who make up the Writing Wives and are featured in this month’s cover article, it has been present from the beginning of their story, when they cheered each other on through the “query trenches” of traditional publishing. It may look different for each of us, but it’s there in some form, big or small.
It’s that support that drives us all forward in this career. It reminds us that, as much as it sometimes can feel otherwise, writing is far from a solo endeavor. And it is a chance to remember that, no matter what—even when we are, maybe, just a little out there—we will always have someone in our corner to cheer us on.
Nicole Schroeder
Editor in Chief
