Finnian Burnett

Today, a woman messaged me on FB to tell me she loved my book Coming Around Again. She mentioned how much she loved the character development of the group of friends and the ups and downs of everyone over a lifetime.

Related to this – authors go through ups and downs, just like our characters. Of course, I can only speak for myself, but I have moments when I wonder if I’m in the wrong career. I have times when a bad review will send me spiralling. I have times when I recognize my books aren’t selling or I haven’t been nominated for an award and I start to feel that I’m wasting my time writing.

I should qualify this by saying there are times when I absolutely love writing, when I can’t imagine doing anything else, when I know in my heart of hearts that I write for the sanity of my own soul and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.

And still, I have those days when I wonder if I simply suck too much to ever make it.

And then someone messages out of the blue to tell me they couldn’t put down my book, that they fell in love with my characters, that they feel as if they haven’t left my fictional world even though they finished the book days ago.

Those messages mean everything. It’s a brief moment out of someone’s life that turn my entire world around.

I like to think we can take that lesson to every aspect of our lives. You can spend five minutes reaching out to someone to let them know you love something about them. You can comment positively on someone’s Facebook picture or on a status they posted about getting a good grade in a class.

It might take a few minutes out of your day, but it might change someone’s life. You just never know, so you might as well err on the side of kindness.