Writing Can Save Your Life; Let It

I haven't been blogging or otherwise communicating online as much as usual lately, for very good reasons. I'm facing two major life crises, simultaneously. As I've been half-joking to friends, if I survive this year I may as well sign up for the Navy SEALs, because it'll be clear that nothing can kill me.

The blog of record for what I'm going through is To Hell & (Hopefully) Back. I won't be writing about any of it here, because this is a blog about indie authorship, not coping with trauma.

Still, there's one aspect of it that's worth addressing on this blog. As I endure, and one day come to embrace, the changes being thrust upon me, writing will be a key survival tool.

Finishing my revisions to The Indie Author Guide and then working with my editor to get the book ready for print will provide me with the much-needed distraction of work, and remind me that I still have something to contribute in the world.

Blogging at To Hell & (Hopefully) Back will help me acquire and strengthen the discipline and self-control that will be demanded of me in the coming months and years, to articulate my feelings and share my experiences in a constructive way, and hone what may be my most valuable survival tool: my sense of humor. It will help foster the habit in me of thinking about these difficult times as a necessary, if painful, transitional period that will end someday, and from which I can learn and grow.

Pouring my anger and pain into letters that will never be sent will offer an outlet for all the negativity that has to come out, but has nowhere to go.

Getting back to work on my author platform in preparation for the release of my book in November will keep me connected to the part of my community that exists apart from what's happening in my personal life, which will keep me looking to future possibilities instead of dwelling on past injuries. It'll give me a place to be the me who's capable and productive.

The marketing push I'll need to engineer when the book comes out will offer me a welcome diversion during what's sure to be the most difficult holiday season of my life.

If you're a writer, count yourself lucky. You have a crisis survival utility belt that rivals anything the caped crusader's got.