Fifteen years ago, you could be discovered off a manuscript alone. Today? Publishers want proof of readership.

Email lists. Podcast appearances. Speaking stages. LinkedIn thought leadership.

If you don’t have that yet, you’re not “behind.” You’re just in the early stages. But platform is now a part of the proposal.

When you sit down to write and freeze, it’s not because you don’t have enough ideas.

It’s because the next sentence feels too honest.

Too revealing. Too close to the bone.

And somewhere inside, you’re asking: Who am I to say this? What if it’s not profound enough? What if I’m not enough on the page?

Returning to the spine is the only way to regain momentum.

Not adding more words. Not pushing harder. Realigning the story.

This is usually the point where I help writers clarify the spine before they lose steam.

Finding time to write has never been the hardest part for me. Sitting down to write? That’s my safe place. I get lost in the sound of a depressed key. The cool metal of my mechanical keyboard warming under my fingertips.

The rhythm. The cadence. The build.

I love building words into worlds. Painting images.
Playing with pace. Pauses. Beats.

When I’m in flow, it feels like conducting a symphony. Everything rising and resolving exactly when it should.

And then — silence.

Hubbs and I have never hidden our nerdiness but I am fairly new to the scene. Before meeting My Geek, I didn’t know about ComicCon, had never set foot in a comic book store, and had never seen a Star Wars movie. I was a film major with a passion for erotic fiction, R&B, and Tyler Perry plays. The closest I’d ever come to his world of geek was Jonathan Lang giving me a copy of Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy in high school (a book that undoubtedly still sits unread in my childhood bedroom). However, I can now wax poetic about what I feel was a missed opportunity in one simple line of dialogue in the Star Wars franchise.

Between social distancing ordinances and black male joggers being gunned down with no one to answer for it, I have found myself lost in the weeds. My letters to my emotions have ceased as I no longer find solace in writing. Writing. My lifelong love affair with the written word no longer serves me. What am I to do?

My husband has never fit into any of the stereo­typical dad roles portrayed in the TV shows I grew up with. He isn't a Cleaver coming home with a briefcase expecting dinner to be ready. He's not a Conner only there to back up my disciplinary action. He's not a buffoon, constantly messing up and needing to bring me flowers to make up for it.