Today, our world—our country—is neither what we hope or desire. I’m sure, like me, you imagined a more peaceful and enlightened world in your future.

Writers can’t simply observe, as we imagine others (whom we sometimes envy) must. Instead, we must transliterate experience into language. It’s how we make sense of the world, especially a world gone so painfully awry.

This post originally began far differently. I almost chose not to post it at all. But if it’s true collective change begins with the individual, then I do want to begin here, in joy, and in gratitude.

Four Joys of Being a Midlist Writer Well Past Midway on Her Journey

Readers. When my first novel was published in 2003, I had a modest goal—I wanted my words to connect with one person I didn’t know. After that happened, I set a more ambitious goal—ten people, and then 100. These eleven years later, I know I’ve touched countless readers, because they write and let me know. This is the magic of writing: I translate something in my head into words, and then a reader translates those words back into something in her head. Knowing that someone somewhere is not only reading but feeling a connection because of my words is both humbling and thrilling.

Mentoring, coaching, teaching, and editing. Helping writers committed to their work—those who understand that revision and rewriting are as much a part of the process as that first draft—has been one of the great joys of my career. And seeing so many of those writers’ stories, novels, and memoirs published reminds me daily that this midwifery matters.

The publishing professionals. Colleagues who remind me it’s the work that matters. Those like publisher Andrew Gifford, publicist Mary Bisbee-Beek, producer Lee Ann Chearneyi, conference director Nicole Starczak, and agent Andy Ross, who make magic in the trenches. It’s one thing to be a word-seeker. It’s quite another to have a posse who carry those words to readers.

The writing itself. As Mark Doty notes in The Art of Description, “It’s what I do, the nature of my attention, the signature of my selfhood: finding the words.” When a writer sits down and enters a world she’s imagined, the “desire [Doty, again]…[t]o find words…commensurate with the clamoring world” is what drives me—what drives us. Writers are compelled to translate experience into words. It’s what we do. It’s who we are. And I’m grateful that I can.

Happy Thanksgiving. And thank you.