Survivor's Guilt
From the 11/3/23 newsletter: When people ask me why I write, I usually just say that I enjoy telling stories and that I'm enamored of the creative process in general. It's not untrue. But some of my indie writing mentors have been encouraging me to dig a little deeper--no, a lot deeper. They insist on it as a marketing necessity, that a good author brand can only come from such a searching of the soul--that I must find my true author "why" before I can connect with my readers. I'm hiding an eyeroll behind my pen here. But the folks that are pushing me to do this--well, they have some credibility with successful writing careers under their belts. So, I've overcome my natural resistance to digging into my psyche--it can get kind of scary in there--and I've uncovered what I can only describe as Survivor's Guilt. By all rights, I shouldn't be here. I had childhood illnesses that would have taken me from this world had I been born a few decades earlier...