05. Take Yo Time, Pastor
If you are familiar with church and church culture, the phrase, “Take Yo Time, Pastor” may not be a strange saying.
If you aren’t familiar, the phrase is when a preacher is preaching and you’re ready to go home, but the church mother in the back will shout, “Take yo time, pastor!”… giving the preacher license to… take his time lol
What does this have to do with writing? Or even writing a book? Glad you asked.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I had a relatively hard week last week. I felt discouraged and wanted to give up on my current project, The Bonai Chronicles. I spoke with a friend who essentially breathed new life into me and helped me refocus on what I wanted to do. She was a light for me, and now whoever may be reading this, I want to breathe that life into you.
If you’ve found this blog, you most likely found it through TikTok where I share a majority of my content - from vlogs to updates, to silly videos. And you most likely know that TikTok faces the harsh reality of being banned. The app is a place where I, and people like me, found a sense of community that had been shattered since the pandemic (and quite possibly way before that). I’ve met so many wonderful people through TikTok and as I mentioned before, writing can be a solo journey and can feel very isolating. And without a platform or that community we’ve come to love, it could be easy to slip into the mindset that no one will care about your story or project and it’s all for naught. But this is me, telling you, to “take yo time”.
Say what you want about social media, but I know that it is our virtual “third-space” that gives us a chance to come together and encourage each other, reminding us that the world is not so bad. People aren’t so bad. And there are people out there who are genuinely excited about the thoughts and works that you want to produce and put out into the world. You may be formulating an idea, drafting, or even on submission, and if you feel like the road is long to see what your writing career blossoms into, don’t be discouraged. I’m that church mother in the back pew, yelling at you to take your time. Take up space and create. No matter what happens across TikTok or any other social media platform, I’ll be there cheering on my mutuals and people who have such incredible talent to make it.
If anything, being on TikTok has proved to me that there will always be a market for creatives, whether big or small, and we have the autonomy to choose who and what we’d like to support.
So in all, I’m just saying to take your time. Create. Write. Birth into this world whatever makes you happy (as long as it isn’t harmful to you, anyone else, or the environment). In a world of impending darkness, we need writers and artists to make beauty out of the ugly, and whatever you create, could just be the light in someone’s darkness.