In a guest post on Well-Storied, writer Stephanie BwaBwa says the world needs writers to express their unique voices now more than ever. “I’m talking about is the idea that punched you in the gut. The one that refused to go away. The story idea you’ve been searching for everywhere and haven’t been able to find on a single shelf between the east and west coasts of your country,” she writes.
BwaBwa begins with some sound wisdom: Write the book you need to read. Writers are often advised to write the book they want to read but which hasn’t been written yet. BwaBwa goes much deeper: Write the book you need to read. Make it personal. Find something inside yourself that needs to be sated and consider how your writing can fulfill that want.
She also urges writers to lean into their experiences, especially the times and circumstances that took us to dark emotional spots. “There is great power in leaning into your experiences (whether good or bad), fusing them into your story, and letting your tale do what only books can do at time: heal, change, shift, restore, uncover, make new,”
she writes.
