LOVE in

I didn’t anticipate LOVE being the hardest ADVENT pillar to write about in 2021.

I’m in LOVE with LOVE. I LOVE to preach and teach LOVE. LOVE makes the world go round. All you need is LOVE…

but…

LOVE for writers? What does that look like?

It looks like the mirror.

Yes, you.

LOVE is so much easier to give than to receive, at least in my experience. I spent years doubting the LOVE I was given because I lacked an essential component.

I didn’t love myself

A described it to me once like this:

Say you have a flower you’d like to pot. First, you have to put dirt in the pot. Better yet, put some gravel down and then put dirt in the pot. If you just plop the plant in the pot, there’s no way it will grow or thrive. It needs nourishment and a stable environment.

That’s self-love for a writer.

We have to fill our pots with self-LOVE before we can expect to nouish anything else. That includes our writing.

I’ve talked about HOPE being the reason we keep writing (because if we don’t HOPE, we’re lost). Now we need to realize that LOVE is the reason we can write in the first place.

LOVE of words

LOVE of writing

LOVE of communication, or a message, or a medium, or whatever…

Without self-love, we might as well be dry-potting plants.

We have to LOVE ourselves as much as we LOVE writing, and I’ll tell you why:

ZERO other people can do what we do

not because writing is hard or because we put in the time or because we’re special.

No.

I mean, yes, all those things, but also, no.

I mean, no one, absolutely no one else, writes what you write, how you write it, and for whom you write it.

No one writes like me. No one writes like you.

In order for you to value your work, you must first value the person who created it.

that’s YOU.

This holiday season, LOVE yourself first and see how much more LOVE you have to give others and, yes, your writing.

Easier said than done? No problem. Drop me a line and I’ll help.

As we approach the new year, I HOPE these ADVENT messages for writers have filled you with PEACE and JOY and, of course, a deeper LOVE of writing.

happy holidays

xxxlinsey