Actually, no, it's not JUST about the writing.

It's something I've said a thousand times.

To my students. To myself. To despairing strangers on social media, staring down the barrel of a publishing industry where nothing seems to make sense anymore, in a world controlled by pain and horror and hunger and hate.

Focus on the writing. The writing is the only thing that matters. The only thing you can truly control.

And. Yes. On some level. It's true.

You should focus on the writing. It is under your control, in a way that nothing else is. It will sustain you through the dark hard times, and there will be a lot of dark hard times in a life as a writer and a life as a human on earth in the time of apocalypse.

But it's not the only thing under your control, and it's not the only thing that will get you through the dark times.

It's only half the story, and I think sometimes early-career writers miss the other half completely.

The other half is building your community. Connecting with the people who will help you hone your craft, tell you you're amazing, hug you virtually or IRL when you need it.

So, ask yourself (yes, really actually ask it.... yes even out loud): who is your writing community? Who are your writer friends? How are you relying on them, how are you helping them? How frequently do you read their work and critique it? How often do you ask that of them? How regularly do you check in, say hey, see how they're doing? Tell them they're amazing?

And if you don't have a very good answer to that qustion, it might be time to start intentionally creating a community of writerly comrades. Who are your people? Your peers? Your readers, yes, but also and above all OTHER WRITERS. The folks who are exploring the same twisted wonderful territory as you. The ones whose work lights you up inside.

How do you do that?

First, by reading. Novels, yes, but short stories too - poems, essays, whatever you love. Whatever you want to try to do yourself. See whose work you love. And then see who else is talking about it.

We were spoiled, in the social media age. Everyone was accessible. Pretty much any time I read a new story I loved, in Clarkesworld or Lightspeed or Shimmer or Fireside Fiction or FIYAH, I could find them on Twitter and tell them about how much their work meant to me. I could rave about the story for the whole world to hear, and tag the author, who was almost always very very happy to hear something nice about their work - even from an utter nobody wannabe bebbeh writer like me. And I could connect with other bebbeh writers who were excited by the same stuff.

That's not really the world we live in now; we can't always count on that same degree of instant connection and gratification. A lot of folks are still out there, and will still see / hear what you have to say, but we have to think beyond

Also, I can't emphasize this enough - make connections in the real world. Build your community IRL.

Having a vibrant resilient local network is especially important for those of us who are chronologically displaced undercover operatives trying to save the world from apocalypse. It's not just about "who are the other writers?" It's also about "who cares about the same things as me?" "Who is involved in local activism and engagement that could be meaningful to me?" "How can I get involved, even / especially if it's "just" at the neighborhood level?"

In a future epistle, I'll talk to you about the top six (or seven) ways I built my own community of artist-activist comrades. For now I'll leave you with a slight re-frame, a perspective pivot that it took me way too long to arrive at on my own.

That's this: they aren't separate things. The writing and the community-building. They're flip sides of the same coin: what it means to be an artist in a world that hates art. Building with and learning from other artists will make your own art better. "Focus on the writing" MEANS being open to other approaches, ways you can get better. It means listening to what other artists have to say. It means paying attention to what other artists are doing. Reading their work. Learning its lessons. "Focus on the writing" means hanging out with other writers in the lobby at a convention. Going to events and talking to strangers. Taking classes. Joining groups.

I've said this before. I'll say it again. And again. Community is a superpower. One we can all tap into.