Lita A. Kurth is a recent MFA graduate of the Rainier Writers Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University who has published poetry, essays, and short-short stories in various small venues. Her short story, “Marius Martin, Proletarian” was recently accepted for the anthology, On the Clock (Bottom Dog Press). She sometimes blogs at http://www.tikkundaily.org/.
1. There’s no way out but through. Your own patience and fortitude can bring you through a seemingly insoluble problem. Who knows where solutions come from, but they wait on the other side of a dark and scary cave.
2. You can face the depths of your own suspected unworthiness and live to tell the tale, which is itself a tale worth telling.
3. Find at least one good mentor and one good colleague. They help so much! By yourself, even in a library, you can never equal the type of support and knowledge that contact with other living writers provides.
4. Be a good mentor and a good colleague.
4.9 Read about writers, preferably those with high aims who suffered numerous and agonizing setbacks.