The Counselor

Introduction

Hi, everybody! For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Jo. I’ve written some books here on Wattpad, but that’s not what this is about. This is about you, the writer who is struggling and wanting to quit because—let’s face it—writing is hard. To actually stick it out and write to the end is an achievement, and of course, that’s only the beginning of the long road of getting published.

But being depressing isn’t what The Counselor is about, either. It came into being because Alex Thomas and I got to talking about the troubles we were having with our writing, and we figured out something: we were having the same problems.

It only stands to reason that if we’re having these problems, someone else out there is, too. And we thought that maybe, if we wrote about these problems, it would not only help us work through them, but it might help some of you, too.

So what we’re proposing is that we’ll write about an article a week, on subjects that include problems that we’ve faced with our writing, and anything else that comes to our attention. I’ll write my thoughts, and Alex will write hers, and we’ll present them both to you in a form that will hopefully help you out.

Alex and I would like to make it very clear from the start that this is NOT about reads, or comments, or votes. It’s about helping ourselves and other writers through the hard times that come with writing. Because there will be hard times. Writing is not easy; it’s not for the faint of heart.

It’s for the people who need to get the words out of their heads and onto paper, and can’t rest unless they do. It’s for the people who have entire conversations with the people in their heads and find that totally normal. It’s for the people who have thoughts and emotions that go beyond what they can begin to understand or contain, and the only way to begin to fathom what it all means is to write about it.

And so, to those people, I wish you the very best of luck. Writing is the most painful, terrible, brilliant, exhilarating, personal thing you can do. And even if it’s not easy, it’ll be worth it in the end.

Best wishes,

Jo