Sometimes It’s Lonely Being a Writer
Sometimes it’s lonely being a writer.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamed of being a writer. As a child, I often picked up where stories ended after I closed a beloved book. I was creating fan fiction in my head long before it was something online.
Right now, I’m writing a book about loneliness and the human desire for connection. I’ve taken time off from my flagship podcast to finish it—and I miss it. A lot.
For a while, I thought maybe I was burning out. I’ve produced and hosted the program for over a dozen years—500 episodes. I love it, but I couldn’t continue podcasting weekly and make meaningful progress on my books without the core team of volunteers I once had. Thankfully, I’m still helping to produce three other podcasts. Those team meetings fuel my need for companionship and mission.
I’m now in the final phase of line editing my book, and it’s been full of surprises.
First came the Sticky Sentences pass—which was hard! Did I really write that many 34-word sentences? What was I thinking?!
Then came the Overused Words pass. I was embarrassed by how often I used the word “stunned.” I expected “was,” “were,” or “maybe”—but stunned? Thank goodness for an old-fashioned thesaurus.
Now I’m in the Fact-Checking phase. I thought this would be the easiest step. I was wrong.
I’m a research junkie. Give me a date or a name to verify, and suddenly I’m tumbling down rabbit holes. What should have taken ten minutes turned into a three-hour Alice-in-Wonderland journey. Along the way, I discovered that “Lonely People” was written as a response to “Eleanor Rigby.” Fascinating—but completely irrelevant to my book.
Here’s what else I learned: quotes on the Internet are suspect.
I should have known this. I’ve seen my own work misquoted online. But when I needed quotes for my book, I trusted what I found.
Thankfully, fact-checking requires going back to original sources. I’ve checked three quotes so far—and every single one was incomplete or slightly wrong.
One quote from Brené Brown felt off to me. When I tracked it down, I discovered it had been shortened without any indication. The full quote was even better.
Another quote was off by just one word—but that mattered to me. I want to honor the authors I quote accurately.
And the third quote? I couldn’t find it anywhere.
After two hours of searching, I reached out to a Beta Reader near the Austin Public Library. All copies of the eBook were checked out. So I bought the Kindle version, but not before helping a friend find a book he now wants to read.
The quote still wasn’t there.
But I found a better one.
And then something unexpected happened.
While double-checking sources, I looked up my own name on Google Books—and discovered a passage about me in a book by Jane Seymour. My daughter wrote an essay years ago that I didn’t know about. Even she didn’t remember submitting it.
Finding her words (and they clearly were her words)—at a time when she’s working on her own first book—felt like a gift.
By the end of the day, my “lonely” work of fact-checking had:
improved my book
introduced a new book to a friend
and uncovered a forgotten piece of my daughter’s voice
It also reminded me how much I love my podcast.
Maybe I’m not quite the introvert I once was. One thing is certain: I feel less lonely when I’m part of my literary or podcasting community.
Have you ever felt lonely in your work—only to discover connection in the most unexpected ways?