A note from our president, Marsha West
August 2011
Every day in every way, I’m getting better and better.
My mother got that quote from some guru. I forget which one. She used it faithfully and encouraged me to as well. I haven’t thought of it in years, but as I sat down to pen this article—actually, I guess that’s “tap” this article—the words popped into my head. Now, I know some of you are doing the math; that’s right, I’m getting on up there in years. You’re asking if she’s been doing that, why isn’t she perfect yet? We’ve discussed this before and we all know I’m not. Nor do I think that’s the direction for the quote.
Think about your first piece of romance writing. From a craft standpoint, how good was it? Some of you may have had beautiful words flow from your fingertips the first time out, but most of us didn’t. In the sense of our writing, we’ve all been getting better and better. None of us is perfect at this job but, again, I don’t think that’s the focus of the statement. It’s the journey. The journey to discover who we are as people and as writers. (Some will refer to that as voice.)
Who among us hasn’t started a diet or vowed to work out regularly? That’s a journey to improve ourselves. I hear you arguing: “Yeah, Marsha, but I gained the weight back; I stopped exercising; I’ve gone back to smoking fifteen times; I’m still not published; My publisher turned down my last proposal.” All of that may be true, but each time we make the effort to improve in whatever area—we take a risk—I believe we gain. The next time we attempt to climb whatever the mountain is, we’re armed with valuable knowledge about ourselves and about the challenge. Knowledge we gained from those earlier experiences.
As writers, our goal is to get better and better. We do that by participating in RWA, our NT chapter, on-line chapters, classes, conferences, workshops, working in critique groups, reading, writing/editing, entering and judging contests, and submitting. Besides the general goal to get better, we set specific goals for the year. At the August meeting, we will again take time to pull those out and see how we’re doing. If you haven’t written any yet, it’s not too late. I’ll have cards and envelopes for you.
One of my goals for the year was to get a website set up. Probably before you get this newsletter, I will have given you an FYI on the NT Loop, telling you about the site (which will say Under Construction) and asking you some questions, which I hope some of you will take time to answer.
It’s hard to stay positive in this business, but without doing that I think most of us would quit. So why not try a few affirmations.
Improvement counts, no matter how small.
~ Anonymous
Who dares nothing, need hope for nothing.
~ Schiller