*Written with Veridion Smart
There’s a quiet belief that many writers hold onto: If the story is good enough, it will find its way. Then somehow, without effort or intention, the right reader will magically appear.
Sometimes that’s actually true. Think Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, who wrote that amazing novel primarily for her own amusement while she was recovering from a chronic illness.
Think A River Runs Through it and Other Stories, a beautifully written, semi-autobiographical set of novellas by Norman MacLean, based on his childhood experiences while fly fishing with his father on the Blackfoot River. How exciting and provocative does that sound? Not very. Yet it was published in 1976, nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in Letters in 1977, and ultimately became one of Robert Redford’s best movies in 1992.
Think The Great Santini and The Prince of Tides, both important works written by the prolific and poetically descriptive author Pat Conroy, who always took pieces of his own chaotic yet fragile life (and, I’m sure, huge chunks of his heart) and melded them somehow almost invisibly into his books.
But stories don’t move on their own. They wait. They sit quietly in the background…unseen, unread, unheard. Not because they lack value, but because they haven’t been given a path forward.
I understand that not every story wants to be found. Some are written for the creator alone, meant to remain private and untouched by the outside world, more a personal examination of the author’s psyche than a tale meant for the public.
But other stories are different. They carry something deeper – a truth, a memory, a piece of understanding that doesn’t belong and shouldn’t remain in silence. Those stories don’t just exist. They reach out for the reader who needs them, readers who may not even realize they’re searching. And that’s where, and when, things begin to change.
Sharing your work isn’t about noise. It isn’t about promotion or performance. It’s about connection. It’s about allowing the story to do what it was always meant to do: to be seen, felt, understood. There’s nothing arrogant about that. Revealing your work is nothing to be ashamed of.
In fact, sometimes the greater loss is keeping it hidden. Because somewhere, someone is waiting for the exact story you’ve chosen to tell. Not perfect, not polished…but the truth. And that connection can’t come until it arrives in the quiet moment when a reader discovers himself in your words.
Let that sink in.
Until that point, your words are simply squiggly marks on paper, benefitting no one, accomplishing nothing of any importance. But when you finally share them with conviction and honesty and passion, which you can’t do without putting your stories out there, then and only then will your words have impact.
And that’s when your stories begin to live.
https://www.amazon.com/Whispers-Through-Rosetta-Diane-Hoessli-ebook/dp/B098278M38/
https://www.amazon.com/Tip-Piano-Rosetta-Diane-Hoessli/dp/1509254412/
*Rosetta Diane Hoessli has written two novels, WHISPERS THROUGH TIME (2021) and TIP THE PIANO MAN (2024), and is working on a third, JOURNEY OF THE HEART. She’d love to hear from you, and you can contact her on this website. Have a blessed day!