“It’s hard to ask for help. It’s even harder to accept it when people offer it.” — Scott Hall
If I have learned anything over the past ten years of my writer’s journey, it is that everything we do is a craft that must be learned. Writing, painting, public speaking, acting, project management, customer relations—everything. Nobody is born knowing how to do these things. We are born with certain talents that can help us be good at one thing or another, sure, but raw talent can only get us so far. We have to be humble enough to recognize that we don’t know everything (or anything), seek help from those who do know, and then implement the things we learn so that we can get better at our craft, whatever it may be.
I have been thinking of stories and writing them down since grade school. And I have always loved it—writing is, without a doubt, my passion. Outside of spending time with my family, reading and writing fiction is my favorite thing to do. But that doesn’t mean I was any good at it. If I’m being honest, there were perhaps spurts of greatness, here and there, in my writing. Maybe that’s what talent and passion provide—a glimpse of what we can do and be if we really buckle down and learn our craft. At some point, though, we have to admit that we can’t get where we want to go on our own. We need help.
For me, that happened during the last days of 2014 when, driving back from spending Christmas in Illinois with my in-laws, I made a New Year’s Resolution that I would write a publishable novel. In addition to devoting time to writing over the next several months, I researched the publishing industry and started talking to anyone who would listen about my story and my dream of publishing a novel. It was surprising how many people actually did listen, and how many of those people wanted to help me. It was through those various conversations that I learned about the Moonlight & Magnolias Conference, an annual event hosted by the Georgia Romance Writers that brings romance authors (and aspiring authors) from Georgia and across the country together for a few days of educational sessions, networking, and fun. And it was at my first conference in the fall of 2016 that I realized how much I didn’t know about writing.
The writing community is, I think, a little different from other groups in that most people you talk to want to share their knowledge and help you be a better writer. Most don’t think of other writers as competition—they think of them as advocates and a support network. I’ve asked a lot of questions over the years, and a lot of people have provided me with advice, offered to read and comment on my work, and taught me what they have learned. I’ve listened, sent them my work, and accepted their feedback. I would never have published a book without their help.
It is hard to ask for help sometimes because it makes us vulnerable. Some consider it a show of weakness, something shameful. Sometimes, even after we’ve worked up the courage to ask for it, we find it hard to accept the help that’s offered, because that is an admission that we are less than perfect, that we can’t do something on our own. But in the end, life is about helping each other get better. The help I receive today I can offer to someone else tomorrow. It’s not an admission of weakness to seek and accept help; it is an admission that I’m human, that I want to learn.
And that is something I’m proud to admit.
- Kathryn Amurra