No. 41 - The Writer is (N) for A

From: (N) <@gmail.com>Date: Fri, Nov 15, 2024 at 8:01 PMSubject: For ATo: A <@gmail.com>

Dearest A, 

Is it just we Capricorns and Geminis having these internal career retrospectives? Maybe it's the Sags and Tauruses too? 

A, are you going to push yourself?  You are such a sensing and poetic writer. It seems you’ve fallen into consuming this booming market for us, taking workshop after workshop, buying book after book. You not in your writing year? That’s okay, too.

Now Zuna, your  friend with the ultimatum? The one who will be ready to write that novel, or produce that film when you are ready and serious. She sounds motivating to me. I need a friend like that, ultra-focused. She reminds me of a midwife friend of my mother’s. 

Mommy admired her at the same time as she recognized they had different objectives as midwives. Mommy offered very modest prices on services and did not always receive compensation for her work (til this day), but she did it as she was called to do so, which is to say midwifery became less a source of cash for her, more a place of personal and spiritual fulfillment. 

I don't mean to say that as a contrast to her good friend who was a BOSS at midwifery as a business. Man, she banked thousands per birth! If the fee or the barter was not set or received at the time of the birth, my dear, A, you might have been catching that baby with thy own hands. She would not be there.

But she wound up extremely successful, financially, albeit also in tension with many in community. She took her craft and skill very seriously as a business. In truth, as you have said about this idea of thinking through the people around you and their aspirations; she was probably one of two midwives in Mommy's life with clear financial goals. 

Not everyone, you know, sees their work as a means to make a living, regardless of how much they value their talent and skill. Your friend Una wants to leverage her craft towards wealth. Good for her.

A, if you’re serious about writing that novel, you will need a dogged focus, and a willingness to leave situations, friendships, habits that do not serve the building of that novel. Flip side though: you can go the slow way as well. The scenic route takes less a toll on friendships, for one thing. 

I see for myself that I have gotten into a kind of slipstream. What would I need to do to accomplish what it is that I will? What sacrifice of some sort or size am I willing to take? As much as I dream at night, I shy from thinking through the mechanics of birthing a film from a dream, writing a novel from a kernel. Part of me worries that I do not have what it takes. 

Gotta run though, A!

Hold fast to your dreams.

With love, always,

(N)

A few minutes after (N) sends email to A:

ChatSpace

A: Hey N! It’s A!

A: What does it take? This making a film? A script? A camera? Actors? Money, yes…and yes, much more than that. But you have the capacity to write for a grant? Don’t you? Do you truly want to make this film? Do you want to write a novel?

N: A novel? Me? I don’t have the time…

A: But you be sending us some ish, (N)… Do you need to redirect? Some sect of people are making these dreams alive all the time. Find those folks. Read about them. Cultivate an energetic that serves your direction whatever that direction may be.  

Tagged under: TWIN, Epistolary, Goal-making, Focus