Tammy Letherer 
As I sit at my desk in Chicago, it seems surreal that less than twenty-four hours ago I was on a Florida beach with a rainbow stretched over my head. Actually, it was the second rainbow to grace me in three days, but when it comes to rainbows, you don’t count them, you simply stop what you’re doing and stare.
A rainbow moment is a right-brain moment, a burst of color and creativity from a higher realm.
But like any transcendent moment in any story, there is always something that comes before—a string of events that leads to everything aligning into a beautiful and orderly creation.
If I back up this story, it included a severe thunderstorm warning. Then came the anticipation of watching a red digital cloud advance across the storm tracker app. There was the nervous excitement of being caught in a force of nature, trapped in a van in a parking lot while the elements battered the windows, erasing the horizon. There was the aftermath: cafe chairs and tables overturned, fallen palm fronds, and giant puddles of water around the outdoor bar.
Only later did I realize how much the whole experience was like writing.
When you write, you’re exposed to these challenges all the time. You get stuck, overtaken by external forces; you deal with low visibility; you wait for a break in the clouds; you learn to accept chaos and know that making a mess is inevitable.
A couple of weeks ago, at the Chicago Writers’ Conference, novelist Ann Garvin gave a talk about the writing life that included what felt, to me, like some pretty ominous warnings.
Because Ann is a wonderfully humorous speaker, her first warning was:
Take your medication. And that had everyone laughing, albeit in a sort of self-conscious, is-anyone-looking-at-me? way.
Nobody is coming to save you was her next thunderbolt. Not an agent, or an editor, or a publisher. No one will put in more work than you do.
Stay the course. Writing is more about failure than success. Ann added that the primary reason people don’t get published is impatience.
Next was: Ask for advice and listen to it. The difference between an amateur and professional writer is that amateurs like everything they do and professionals like nothing. Getting support from other writers will help you find a balance.
Ann ended with this ray of sunshine: If I really didn’t think I have something to say, I would stop.
This is what you have to believe.
You have to believe it the same way a storm believes in a rainbow, knowing it can cause something it rarely sticks around to see.
You have to believe it the way the sun knows it can refract itself into a rainbow, knowing it won’t last long.
Sure, writing is not all sunshine and raindrops. But when it is—well, it’s just heavenly, that’s all.
