I AM WRITING

“T here is nothing in this world that can trouble you as much as your own thoughts.” - Unknown I feel like the queen of self-doubt. Even now as I write this, thoughts like, "who the heck am I to think anyone would be interested in reading my  Have you ever felt like an imposter? Or that you aren’t an ‘expert’ at anything? Or like it would be so much simpler to just not try to go after the things you are going after… because at times it can be so dang hard! Last night I was chatting with some of the Live Your Legend Local Hosts, some of whom shared these thoughts… because when you are taking a step in a new direction, trying something new, or getting outside of your comfort zone, the self-doubt is super real! I know that I personally feel that way all the time when it comes to career! I question what I am doing, where it is going and whether or not I should just go get a normal job with a stable paycheck… where I know the next steps and there is a boss to ask the things

By Shaunta Grimes When I started Ninja Writers in 2016, I had precisely zero followers. I read something, a blog post probably or maybe a book, that convinced me that what I really needed was an email list. If I could build an email list, I could make Ninja Writers work. My focus was simple. I wanted to teach what I know about writing fiction and I wanted to start building an audience for my own fiction— and to do that I needed an email list full of fiction writers and readers. Here’s why I want you on my email list, from a personal standpoint, but also as a business person. My email list is mine. I own it. If Medium collapses, if Wordpress goes away, if my blog is hacked and I have to start over — I can bring you with me, wherever I land, if you’re on my list. The Internet is a wide and unruly place. Wild and largely untamed. Nothing is too big to fail here. Sites that seem so solid they’ll last forever, disappear all of a sudden when something new comes along. (I’m looki

By Shaunta Grimes I know what you’re thinking. You think I’ve lost my mind. Everyone knows that writing is hard work. Really hard. Just ask Hemingway: There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. Or E.B. White: Writing is hard work and bad for the health. or Thomas Mann: A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. Hey, dudes. Thanks. That was super helpful. Okay, so the work of writing is what it is. Work. And it’s hard. There’s a ton of rejection and a massive learning curve. So, yeah. It’s not easy. But being a  successful  writer is easy. Stay with me here. First, let’s talk about what success means. It means whatever you want it to. Seriously. It’s all about perspective. Don’t believe me? I bet you’d feel successful if an editor from Random House called you up today and offered you a $10,000 advance. Do you think Stephen King would feel the same? Uh huh. See? I

“Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” — William Shakespeare, Macbeth (Act V, Scene V) In just two words of five syllables, medieval man brewed a bitter antidote to all from melancholy and regret to hubris and ostentation:  memento mori  (“remember [that you have] to die”). The phrase reminds u s that no matter what stirred our pasts, nor what will  shake our futures, all of it shall inevitably come to naught. For we will — we must — die. As an adolescent, my mind latched onto death like a gnat — obsessively, annoyingly, each and every day. But my personal   memento  mori  brought existential pain and not relief. It was a discomfort I chided myself for feeling — there existed far too many  real  things to fret over, like work and school and a fast-encroaching tidal wave of loans.