Sometimes, writers need recalibration, a singular, essentialist goal. Even something as straightforward as “write 10,000 words today” can give shape to formless hours. What follows are pathways forward—concrete steps emerging writers can take as they move from chrysalis states that feel like decay but might be transformation.

Independent writers should consider self-publishing through platforms like KDP and Gumroad, maintaining professional quality while retaining full rights. The beauty of Gumroad: it offers flexible pricing models—pay-what-you-want options that make work accessible while still generating income.

Consider offering workshops, too. Not the academic kind where writers dissect each other’s work with theoretical frameworks, but something more healing. Spaces where nobody gets turned away for lack of funds, where creative writing becomes a tool rather than a performance. Models exist: Calgary’s free Write for Life series or Saskatchewan’s Opening Doors Through Stories workshops for newcomers.

The Japanese have this concept called wabi-sabi—the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The beauty found in the flawed, the broken, the aged. There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in. Leonard Cohen knew this.

I’m doomscrolling fifteen second videos. My Kobo is full of books I genuinely want to read. Contemporary poetry. Essays on craft. Novels that might change me. I think to myself why don’t I just read if I’m going to lay in bed? Why can’t I at least rot productively?

Writers shouldn’t see these patterns as moral failings but rather recognize them as nervous systems trying to regulate themselves, trying to find homeostasis in a world that feels increasingly untethered.

For audience growth, authentic marketing centers on genuine connection rather than high-pressure tactics. Writers can share their journeys honestly—the good and bad days, the brainrot and the contemporary poetry both. They can spotlight other BIPOC and Queer writers, build community rather than just audience.

Consider what can be built with a writing community. How such groups can grow from a handful of members to over one hundred. How they can publish anthologies, hold events, and create spaces for diverse voices to emerge. That isn’t nothing. That’s something real.

Ancient Romans had a god named Terminus who guarded boundaries. Farmers would gather at the boundaries of their land and give offerings to him. There’s wisdom there—the recognition that without edges, without demarcation, we lose our sense of place, of purpose.

The sky has been wringing itself dry all day. There’s a violence to prairie storms that feels cleansing—the way they arrive with such drama, announce themselves with thunder, then leave everything washed and new.

Emerging writers should explore concrete opportunities: The Writers’ Guild mentorships running January through April, pairing emerging writers with professionals at no cost to apprentices. The Banff Centre Winter Writers Residency offering studio space and community. Literary festivals across the prairies—Wordfest in Calgary, Thin Air in Winnipeg, Ânskohk Indigenous Lit Festival in Regina.

Apply for grants: the Access Copyright Foundation offers Professional Development grants up to $3,000 and Alberta’s arts agency provides Literary Project grants up to $18,000 for creative projects.

For accountability, writers can use apps like Forfeit—requiring a photo to prove you’ve completed a task. The punitive motivation that helps establish habits:

• A photo of a handwritten morning pages
• A photo of the e-reader screen showing reading progress
• A photo of a literary magazine submission confirmation page
• A photo of even just a single paragraph written

The evidence required by an external system can provide structure writers might scoff at in another life, but that might save them in this one.

These tools help writers pursue essential supplemental income streams: freelance writing for local nonprofits, teaching workshops, applying for mentorship honorariums. They encourage submissions to local journals like Grain in Saskatchewan or Prairie Fire in Manitoba.

The path forward can feel different with the right support. More possible. Proper treatment creates space between wanting and needing, between intention and compulsion.

Writers can find wisdom in the Danish practice hygge, the Chinese philosophical concept of wu-wei, the Indigenous concept of walking softly on the earth. So many cultures have found ways to reconcile the Western obsession with productivity—to pushback against the industrialized notion of human worth measured by output.

The way things are now can like decay, and that’s okay. Or maybe it isn’t decay at all, but transformation. The storm continues outside. Lightning illuminates the apartment in brief, stark moments. Everything revealed then hidden again. This is how clarity comes—in flashes, in fragments. Never all at once.

Tomorrow, the writer wakes up. Makes coffee. Opens the Kobo. Reads Mary Oliver or Ocean Vuong or whoever speaks in that moment. Opens Indeed or LinkedIn. Crafts cover letters that try to translate messy humanity into corporate speak. Writes—something real, something that matters.

Or maybe not. Maybe just sitting by the window watching the world dry itself after the storm. Either way, it’s okay. Either way, you’re here. Either way, you’re trying. For now, that has to be enough. For now, that is enough.

Originally posted here.