Summary

The author underwent a transformative experience, shifting from feeling like a 'wannabe' writer to embracing their identity as a writer in a mere 25 minutes, through a profound mindset shift during a live writing session with other writers.

Abstract

The article narrates the author's journey from aspiring to actualizing their identity as a writer, a transformation that occurred during a brief yet impactful 25-minute live writing session. This moment of 'Kairos,' or 'pregnant time,' allowed the author to realize that writers are ordinary people who draw upon their everyday experiences to create content. The revelation that there is no secret formula to becoming a writer, other than simply writing, led to a surge in the author's creative output, producing over 60 articles in three months. The author emphasizes that writing is not an exclusive or magical ability but a practical skill that involves turning the mundane into the interesting, and that even successful writers start with bad ideas but succeed through persistence and action.

Opinions

The author believes that the concept of 'Kairos' is instrumental in understanding profound life transformations.
They suggest that self-doubt and imposter syndrome can persist even when one is actively engaged in their profession.
The author posits that writers are not inherently special but are individuals who utilize their daily lives and experiences as material for their work.
They assert that there is no secret knowledge or initiation required to become a writer; one simply needs to write.
The author advises against comparing oneself to others and instead focus on personal creativity and output.
They highlight the importance of generating ideas, regardless of their initial quality, as a fundamental part of the writing process.
The author challenges the notion that writing must be a time-consuming endeavor, suggesting that a single article can be completed in just a few hours.
They encourage readers to remain open to life's unexpected moments, as personal transformation and creative breakthroughs can occur suddenly and unexpectedly.

25 Magical Minutes Took Me from ‘Wannabe’ to Writer

My life turned around in a blizzard of “aha!” mindset shifts

There’s an ancient Greek concept called Kairos. I find this idea helpful in understanding what took place when I went from wannabe to writer in just a few minutes.

Kairos is sometimes translated as “pregnant time”. It happens when time is pregnant with possibility. When something completely new is about to be born. You could say Kairos is like stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia.

Ordinary time is called Chronos, and this contrasts with Kairos.

In Chronos time passes in minutes and seconds, just like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. Tick-tock, tick-tock. This is what most of the day feels like. Sometimes, it drags. Often, it rushes by faster than you ever dreamed possible.

During Kairos, time runs in slow motion. There’s no ticking, but only the present moment. A whole lifetime can turn around in a few minutes when Kairos happens. It’s a profound experience, that’s somehow beyond words.

Arguably, many of the world’s sacred traditions are an attempt to grapple with a Kairos experience. The question is: How do we understand what happens when a life is transformed in just a few moments?

This isn’t a “how-to” guide. It’s more like a map of my journey, of how I got to a point of Kairos a couple of months ago, sitting on the couch in my living room, and emerged out the other side transformed. I hope it will encourage you to find your own map, too.

I Fell Short of My Dream for 20 years

During the year 2000 in the month of April, I first realized my calling to write. I bought a spiral-bound notebook and sat in the chairs outside a closed-down cafe, people watching. Pondering the world, I wanted to understand it. Writing was my method for gaining this understanding.

Seven years later, writing became my main income. But I didn’t feel like a writer.

Can you do something for a living, and still not believe that’s who you are? In my experience, you can. You show up at work and feel like you don’t belong.

If you’re a lawyer, it runs like this: You finish law school, and ace all your exams. Then when you start work, your mind tells you you’re not a real lawyer, you’re just a kid in a suit pretending to know what they’re talking about.

That’s what happened to me. I was a writer. I got paid for penning words. But I didn’t feel like a writer. I felt like an imposter.

For well over a decade writing has paid my bills, but until recently, I didn’t see myself as a writer. I saw myself as a wannabe. Real writers had special magic I hadn’t yet discovered. They’d been sprinkled with fairy dust by Tinkerbell, and learned how to fly. Me? Stuck on the ground.

I Opened the Wardrobe and Stepped into Narnia

My moment of Kairos happened when I met two writers, Zulie Rane and Todd Brison, who decided together to write an article live in front of an audience. During the first 25 minutes of their live writing session, Kairos happened.

Here’s the paradox: When Kairos arrived, it was like the moment I’d been waiting for my whole life. But there were no angels with trumpets. No big announcement. And the message I learned was: Writers are ordinary, flawed vulnerable people, just like you and me.

The secret was: there is no secret. I simply needed to stop waiting around for something to happen, and just start creating.

During the session, Todd Brison was writing an article about an Instagram video he’d watched that day about Barack Obama. Zulie Rane was writing about a story she’d heard from a local chicken farm. Eagles had been stealing chickens, so the farm had to come up with a new business model.

It became crystal clear: Writers aren’t magical creatures. They don’t have access to a pot of fairy dust. The magic of writers — if you call it that — is the mundane substance of their everyday lives.

The Kairos moment gave me the next steps I needed to take.

A Blizzard of “Aha!” Mindset Shifts Fell From the Sky

Here’s what fell into place in my mind during my Kairos moment. These simple mindset shifts are what turned me from wannabe to writer. With this new way of thinking, I went from close to zero creative output to writing more than 60 articles in three months.

Writers are ordinary people with ordinary lives, just like you and me. Not many writers live in a warzone or are recovering drug addicts. Todd and Zulie spend their days watching Instagram videos, looking after their pets, and checking their email. Day-to-day, their lives are pretty ordinary.
I could look at my day for my next idea. When finding an idea can be as simple as thinking of a YouTube video I watched, or a tweet that caught my attention, it’s easy to come up with new ideas. I no longer have the excuse of “I don’t have any ideas, nothing interesting happens to me.” Writers spin straw into gold. They take the mundane events of their lives and turn them into something interesting.
To write, I just need to write. Before, I thought writing was a complicated process. I thought there was a special initiation ceremony that would make me into a real writer. I thought I needed to wait for Tinkerbell to arrive at my house and sprinkle me with fairy dust. That’s not how it works. To write, you sit at a keyboard and spill out words.
There’s no secret knowledge that makes you a writer. I spent years reading books and watching videos about writing, trying to discover the secret that makes you a real writer. Now I know: you’re a real writer if you write. That’s all there is to it.
Stop comparing and start doing. As I approach middle age, I find it easy to watch the people who achieve creative success in their early 20’s and think “I wish I could be like them!” It’s an easy recipe for resentment. So I’ve learned to avoid doing that and instead focus on creating.
The best creators start with bad ideas. I previously assumed that once you’ve “made it” as a writer, you’d never have a bad idea. Watching two writers at their craft, I discovered that their creative process starts with generating ideas. Good or bad it doesn’t matter. What’s important is that they create new ideas, and turn them into articles.
You can complete an article in just a couple of hours. Now that I’m writing on a regular basis, I’ve learned this lesson in a powerful way for myself. I complete most of my articles in under three hours, and often less than that. Before — from my experience as a professional writer — I believed a good article should take a minimum of 8 hours to write. I thought you had to invest a lot of time to create an article that would engage readers. It’s a powerful revelation that removes the excuse “I don’t have time to write.”

Your Treasure is Waiting Just Around the Corner — Let it Surprise You

The beautiful thing about Kairos is that it comes as a gift. You never know when it will show up to surprise you, and turn your life around.

So if there’s something you want, a treasure you’re seeking, keep searching. Sometimes you’ll go down the wrong path, maybe for years. And sometimes things will turn in a few seconds. The treasure will show up on your doorstep. It could be as simple as 25-minutes on YouTube.