Just believing is usually enough

“My wife made a crucial difference during those two years I spent teaching at Hampden (and washing sheets at New Franklin Laundry during the summer vacation). If she had suggested that the time I spent writing stories on the front porch of our rented house on Pond Street or in the laundry room of our rented trailer on Klatt Road in Hermon was wasted time, I think a lot of the heard would have gone out of me.

Tabby never voiced a single doubt, however. Her supposed was a constant, one of the few good things I could take as a given. And whenever I see a first novel dedicated to a wife (or a husband), I smile and think, There’s someone who knows. Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.” | Stephen King in “On Writing”

Solo pursuits like writing are undoubtedly lonely. But, so are most journeys when we come to think of it. We’re in it, for the most part, alone. And, people who believe in us through these journeys – parents, spouses, siblings, friends – make more of a difference than they often realize.

As King rightly says, “they don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.”

We feel it when they believe in us.

Just as others feel it when we believe in them.

Here’s to celebrating both in our lives.

On Bestseller ideas

“Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.” | Stephen King, On Writing

“Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.” Applicable in writing and in life.

(Making slow progress through this Stephen King masterpiece. What a great read.)