The moment my writing career changed was not when a publisher was interested in my work. Nor was it when my first short story was accepted to be published in an anthology. Nor even was it when my first book or my fifth book came out! It wasn't when I was interviewed. It wasn't when I got money in my bank account. It wasn't when reviews came in or I spoke to readers that I've never met.

Each & every one of these were amazing moments.

BUT, I realize now none of these were when my writing career changed.

The single thing that made the most impact & shifted me from the path that I was on to where I've gotten, was when I was willing to throw down & invest the money by inviting another person into my creative process! 

It wasn't as terrifying as I thought, spending the money or letting someone else see my unpolished, raw, tangled disaster of a manuscript manuscript. 

It was then that I first started to feel like a writer!

With the help of another person I could see what I was trying to say, but more importantly, I learned some systems & structures that had escaped me up until that point.

I've mentioned elsewhere that I am dyslexic. I think somehow in the back of my mind I resisted trying to learn something to make my writing better for fear that it would just confirm what I believed to be true when I was younger;  that I couldn't do it.

 Quite the opposite was true!

When I learned  to let others help me, when I learned that the creative process is not a solo Adventure, my writing really took off. My communication improved. My ideas flowed; my confidence swelled.

That nagging perfectionism that kept me just dabbling for so long took a back seat because I recognized that any final product requires contribution of many so many eyes & so many revisions. 

What had been keeping me stuck & amateur wasn't about what I had to say or my even ability to communicate, it was rather that I'd been trying to do it all by myself & refused any support. So, the moment my writing career changed was the moment but I got help.

It's been more or less a whirlwind ever since:

• Writing & Publishing Two solo books,
• (5 books total in 2020 alone.)
• A Publishing Company that supports women's empowerment through writing & Publishing
• We've got an international team supporting authors from around the world
• 6 books in the works for our clients before June 2021, all because I learned I couldn't do it alone.

What's waiting for you when you are ready for your writing career to really take shape? 

Connect with your host, Sierra Melcher, here or on https://linktr.ee/integralwomen & learn more about redthreadbooks.com