Too often we talk about how tough the writing world is these days. Today let me turn the tables and talk about some of the best things about being a writer today in 2023.
A Dozen Best Things About Being a Writer in 2023
- Computers— Can you imagine writing in the days of carbon paper, White Out and having to type a fresh manuscript if the manuscript you sent out came back in less than perfect condition? Computers. Definitely one of the best things.
- Spell Check— I know we complain about it but tell the truth, we depend on it as well. Plus it gives us a great laugh every now and then.
- Grammar Check— I don’t know how many times I’ve seen that underline and had to grab my Chicago Manual of Style to see why the grammar guru didn’t like that particular turn of phrase.
- Writer conferences— Can you imagine how much richer Louisa May Alcotts life would have been had she been regularly attending writer conferences. It would have been hard for Emily Dickinson to overcome her shyness but once she sat at a table with other writers her world would have opened up.
- Online writing communities— Need I say more? Another one of the very best things
- How about Zoom– Connecting with mentors and writers across the miles
- Writing mentors— I’m always amazed by the experienced writers who choose to give back rather than cocoon themselves in a colony of their successful peers.
- Access to readers— who could ever have dreamed of social media just twenty years ago?
- Publisher info at our fingertips— I remember twenty years ago having to send for writer’s guidelines complete with SASEs. I had filing cabinets full of periodical guidelines as well as publisher guidelines. Now every periodical and publisher (and agent) has a website.
- Professional blogs like this one— now you can know what the industry peeps are thinking from day to day. The market changes so fast and now you can run with the changes.
- Options— who could have ever imagined Amazon, print-on-demand, micro publishers, ebooks, zero-cost self-publishing, etc., etc.. A whole world of possibilities has opened up to the writers of today.
- And coffee– So many wonderful options for at home joe. How many books are fueled primarily by java?
So how about you? What did I miss? Why don’t you share your own best things?
Writers’ love-hate relationship with punctuation
The best thing ’bout the world these days
is something I once feared,
but have learned in time to praise,
the acceptance of the weird,
for I’ve become an oddity
myself, anachronistic;
t’would have been in days of yore a pity
to be dismissed as a statistic,
but people see me now, ‘Whoa, dude!’,
and I think it opens doors
when I don’t let modern life intrude
on porkpie hat and plaid plus fours,
and entertain my entourage
with pukka slang straight from the Raj.
Love this post! How well I remember the carbon paper and white-out! LOL! 🙂 They date me but also make me so much more appreciative of what we authors have today.
One of my favorite blessings is being able informally to meet writers all over the world through Zoom. I participated in a monthly writers’ group whose members were from the four corners of the earth. What amazing discussions we had! The lifelong relationships we forged would have been nearly impossible even a decade ago. But now modern technology enables us to converse with colleagues on the other side of the world as readily as though we were sitting together at the kitchen table. 🙂 How blessed we are!
Thank you for this wonderful post that serves as a timely reminder to count those blessings! 🙂
What a marvelous list. I have definitely benefited from mentoring of writers many miles from me. I think email is an amazing thing to. I know it’s a subcategory of computers but it’s amazing to get almost instantaneous feedback through email. It is also the way I have connected with individual readers of my blog. People share pictures and kind words in ways I don’t think they would have with only postal mail available. Thanks for reminding us of our blessings! Enjoy!
I love this, Wendy!
You are right, there are so many good things about being a writer today. I was homeschooled and had to type a few papers on a typewriter using white out. I also started trying to get published twenty-two years ago and had to order guidelines from magazines and publishers as not everyone had a website at that time. I especially love the writing blogs though, thank you!
Given I got through college composing on a typewriter for journalism classes, writing out papers longhand before typing them for English classes, AND editing stories for the university newspaper on a very early computer for typesetting, I cannot begin to tell you how much easier it is to compose on Word. It is leaps and bounds better! I appreciate Word every day. Although I must give your readers a heads up: If you take the MSAT, there is no spell check or grammar check. They want to know if you can spell and punctuate! Our daughter is smart as all get-out, but stumbles over spelling. She walked out of the test pretty distressed, although I’m happy to say she ultimately did obtain a master’s degree in environmental science. 🙂