Turning Point | Decide What To Be and Go Be It | Sara Biren

 

Four years ago this month, the wheels began to turn for our move to Wisconsin. This was 2020 at the beginning of lockdown, and moving during a pandemic presented many challenges. I'm still trying to find my footing and my place as a Wisconsin author. I'm getting there and taking steps to keep moving forward.

One thing that I've started this year is a new fiction writers' group at a wonderful independent bookstore in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, Paper Crane Bookstore. Six (!) people came to the first meeting last Friday. The Friday Night Writers range from published authors to writers who have a lot of ideas but aren't sure where or how to start.

Friday night was a turning point for every person who showed up for that meeting. At some point, they all decided to try something new. They decided that they would see what the group was all about, that they would actually stop whatever they were doing and get into their vehicles and drive to the bookstore in the cold, late-winter rain and put themselves out there. They decided to become a Friday Night Writer, to learn and improve their craft and help others, too.

Since the first time I heard it, I’ve adored the Avett Brothers song “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise,” especially this line: Decide what to be and go be it. I love it so much, I’m considering getting a tattoo of that lyric. (Watch the video. It’s amazing.)

Because that’s one of life’s major turning points, isn’t it? When you decide what to be and go be it? When you decide that you are a writer or a dancer or a filmmaker or an engineer or whatever your heart desires? When you take steps to nurture the passion inside you and let it out into the world for yourself or for others to enjoy, even if it’s scary or hard or people think you’re bananas for doing it.

Life is full of turning points, small ones and more significant ones. I remember the moment I decided to be a writer, decades ago. And I feel so honored to have been there Friday night for the turning point of some of those Friday Night Writers.