Healing Writer Wounds

I’ll never forget the last time I saw her at a conference. I had been friends with Matilda (not her real name) for years. She was sitting at the bar, just hanging out, and I joined her. After all, that’s how our friendship had been year after year. But that year, something was different. Matilda seemed annoyed that I was there, and I noticed that she spent the whole time looking around the bar for other people. We had a brief, polite conversation, and then, when a bestselling author entered the room, Matilda ditched me. Our emails, rather than being the usual friendly sort, turned into her assistant very politely blowing me off. Basically, once Matilda’s star rose, she left me behind as a friend.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and it’s taken me a while to come up with this post. Because it hurts to go there. It hurts to be reminded of how, when Matilda needed help with a book, I contributed what ended up being the meat of a chapter, and in her acknowledgements, she thanked big name authors who, in separate conversations that they initiated, mentioned being surprised because they’d had nothing to do with her book. Yet, despite everything I’d done to help her, I’d gone completely unacknowledged. Not that I did it for the acknowledgement. As a friend, I’d been happy to help. But it became really clear that she saw people like me as people to use on her path to success, and once my usefulness was over, I no longer existed.

I wish I could say that Matilda was the only friend who did this to me. I have several friends, now bestselling authors, whose early careers I helped, who no longer acknowledge our friendship because I’m no longer an asset to their career.

So why do I share this story? It’s not so that you feel sorry for me, or question my judgement in helping friends who clearly aren’t, or even to get back at Matilda. I purposely hid her name and identifying details because my goal is not to hurt Matilda. She’s a fine writer, and I still believe in her work. I just think she was a lousy friend to me, and her actions really hurt me.

But here is the point: a friend of mine emailed me to tell me that she was interested in my retreat, but the real problem with why she’s stuck in her writing is that another writer hurt her and she can’t get past it. Boy, do I know that problem. So many Matildas in my life, and other hurts, and sometimes writing is hard. I have friends struggling with hurts from harsh editors, betrayals from friends, mean reviews, and a lot of negativity in their writing business. And guess what? They sit in writing paralysis based on those hurts.

I know that paralysis all too well. For a long time, I was afraid to be a successful author because I didn’t want to turn into the kind of jerk who abandoned all my friends because I was more successful than them. It was more important to me to be a good friend who was there for her friends than it was to be a successful author. For some reason, I thought those two things were mutually exclusive.

What a crock!

I realized that I have many friends who are successful authors, friends who are not about stepping on others to get ahead, but are reaching their hands down to pull others up. And that’s the kind of author I intend to be.

But here’s the thing: That wound paralyzed me for a long time. 

The wounds many of my friends have been dealing with are keeping them from moving forward in their writing careers.

Part of the work we’ll be doing at my retreat is looking at those wounds, and seeing how they’re holding us back. But also, finding healing for those wounds. One of the ways we writers are lacking in nourishment is in finding healing for our wounds. The wounds we carry, if they’re still festering, are shackles that bind us to the past and prevent us from moving forward. However, when we find healing for our wounds, we find the freedom we need to move forward in confidence toward success.

I can’t promise that if you come to my retreat that you’ll find full healing. But my goal, and my hope, is that you’ll be able to identify those wounds, and identify ways of dealing with them, so that you can move in the direction of healing.

If someone has wounded you in a way that has hurt your writing, you owe it to yourself to find healing. 

Carrying that wound doesn’t affect the other person at all- it just hurts you. I’m pretty sure that Matilda isn’t sitting at home, thinking about how awful it is that she hurt me. She looks at herself in the mirror every day and doesn’t give me a second thought. And that’s okay! So why do I spend so much energy worrying about her? The most freeing thing in my life has been healing that wound. 

And I want to help you find that same healing.

Obviously, my blog is a little too public for you all to pour out your hearts. But if you’d like to share on the topic, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you found healing for wounds? And if you’re struggling with a wound, and need to chat, feel free to email me privately at danica@danicafavorite.com.