Five Ways to Become a Happier Writer

A post by Mark Alpert at Kill Zone Blog: Five Ways to Become a Happier Writer.

These seem like pretty good suggestions to me, so here they are:

a) Don’t let your happiness depend on things that are beyond your control.

Always good advice in all areas of life.

b) Don’t let your happiness be contingent on your number of readers.

I would say, your number of reviews on Amazon. Who knows how many readers they have? But we can all see how many reviews each book has on Amazon and Goodreads and wherever.

Incidentally, while naturally my personal happiness is not contingent on the number of reviews I have on Amazon, I will just note that Black Dog is up to … 49 review. Come on, now, somebody who hasn’t already written a review, zip on over there and make it a round number, okay?

Okay, let me see —

c) Write about things that make you happy.

I would say, Write books you’re happy to write. I’m not sure that’s quite the same thing, but I suspect it’s what Alpert meant.

d) Decide how important writing is to your happiness, and adjust your life accordingly.

Here I think practical considerations are likely to impinge quite a lot. You know what I suspect will make your writing suddenly seem more important to your happiness? A reasonable expectation that you will get paid for it at some point. But hey, people are different, no doubt there are some writers for whom that is not a consideration. A few. Maybe.

e) When good things happen in your writing life, celebrate like crazy.

Oh yeah, good advice there! Every writer may be different, but not in this. Every single writer in the universe should absolutely celebrate good things that happen in their writing career.

And in their non-writing lives too, ideally. Today I am happy because I took Conner and Kimmie to the cardiologist for their first formal heart certifications — they turned two years old last week, so this is the age at which we generally do that. They both are clear — not a surprise, but always a good thing. I did long ago have a young dog fail her very first two-year-old heart check. It absolutely can happen.

Their mother and father were both clear last spring; here’s hoping they both still will be this spring as well. Should be, I think they will be, but with this breed, you never take it for granted.

Maybe I will breed Kim this year. I have no idea to whom. Not to be immodest, but it’s kinda tough finding a boy good enough for her . . .

Here’s a pic from the past: this was Conner and Kim at their first show. This was the fall of 2017; they were in the puppy classes. I posted it here then, I think, but they are sooooo adorable in this picture, here it is again.