A Farewell Message: Winnie the Pooh said it best

Jordan Dane 

@JordanDane

Photographer Credit: Shaun C Williams



“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

Winnie the Pooh


This will be my final TKZ post, my fine friends. It’s been nearly ten years that I’ve had the good fortune to be invited as a contributor. You might think all those years would make it an easy decision to step down, but the years made it harder to decide to move on.

I started writing in 2003, sold in auction in 2006 with my first 3 books released in 2008 and beyond. Even with the experience I have (on paper) from then until now, I still feel like the mesmerized kid who sneaked under the big tent at the circus, afraid someone will find me & toss me out. I’m a sponge for the information presented here every day–posted by each author contributor as well as the helpful comments made by our followers. That’s YOU. I’ve learned a great deal from our TKZ family of subscribers & followers. Thank you.

It’s clear how dedicated TKZers are about the passion we share when reading the comments to our posts. As a writing community, we take great care in nurturing the burgeoning talents of the many anonymous submitters who request feedback on their first pages, for example. Or we read a post & feel free to contribute our comments to develop the topic with our personal thoughts because we feel comfortable in doing it here. Our outspoken family is what I love the most and will never forget.

If there is anything I can wish for our followers, I wanted to share some parting words of encouragement.

1.) Be fearless. Write as if no one knows IT’S YOU. There’s an old saying that made a difference for me when I first started to write.

“Write like your parents are dead.”

Truer words were never spoken. I remember my first books when I pushed the line and wondered if readers will connect ME to what I wrote, especially my friends–or WORSE, my parents. My mother told the book store manager (at my first book signing) that she loved my book, except for the pages she had to duct tape together. True story.

Or the time I had my parents join me at a speech I gave to a large writers’ group in Austin, Texas. After reading a passage aloud, I gulped when I realized they were behind me, listening to a graphic excerpt. My mother told attendees afterwards that she would have to give me a time out.

I also heard from a fellow male author that his most mortifying experience came when his mother corrected his sex scene. OUCH!

2.) Push your skills with each new book. No one needs to know your limitations. If you keep pushing, you won’t have any.

3.) Write on the edge of your comfort zone. Try anything that intimidates you. Otherwise how will you ever overcome & achieve? With every new book, I picked a new plot method that stretched me. If another author claimed to know all the “rules” and told me what I shouldn’t do, that became my new goal.

The one genre I thought I would never write, I took a stab at with THE CURSE SHE WORE when I wrote historical fiction. It took a lot of research and the help of friends like the lovely and talented TKZ’s Clare Langley-Hawthorne to give me the courage to try it. One less thing to intimidate me. (TKZ’s Joe Hartlaub helped me with the setting of New Orleans and I will forever be grateful.)

4.) Pay your good fortune forward. Our writing community is very generous in helping other writers. We see that here at TKZ or we have probably all benefited by a helping hand from other authors in our circles. Do the same for others. You will receive far more from giving than receiving.

5.) Never forget who got you to the dance. Most times it is family who endure the challenges of living with an author. I definitely had the support of family, but I sold because one bestselling author stuck her neck out for me. The story is on my website at this LINK & I have never forgotten her kindness. She changed my life forever and helped me realize a lifelong dream. There are no words to thank someone for that. In fact, after I sent her flowers and gushed, she told me to simply ‘pay it forward.’ So there are no words – JUST DO.

My years of involvement with TKZ was one way I chose to spread her generosity and DO in the spirit of paying kindnesses forward. But I received far more than you’ll ever know. Thank you, TKZers! I won’t forget you.

***

Good friends never say goodbye. They simply say ‘See you soon.’