The Family Tree
I come from a family of risk-takers. This is my great-uncle Howard trying to get someone’s (anyone’s!) attention and taking a few risks in the process. Risk is…well, risky! And leaves little room for error. Putting yourself out there as a writer, ahead of the fates and hoping for the best, can make for a great story- one that can be either comic or tragic, dramatic or heroic. It can go either way.
As a younger woman, my grandmother climbed to the top of the tree to get the best apples for her pies; my aunt (remember her father on the chairs?) mistrusted banks and so hid money behind the radiators (pronounced rah’-dee-ators) in her house. The willingness to risk—and some forms of risk adversity—runs in my family bloodline. Working creatively is risky business. It’s called, “putting yourself out there for someone to judge.”
Creative writing is a balancing act with just the right amounts of form, substance, language skill, instincts and life-experience…and something more elusive, called sensitivity. Because telling your story means revealing your thoughts, feelings and ideas and then putting them out there for all the world to see, it is important to do it right the first time.
Mitigate your risk. Let an expert help you tell your story. Then, watch as the world responds.