Not too long ago, the writers and artists and successful people of the world were chose, picked, anointed by  the institutions of the elite – the New York Times, the Washington Post, local newspapers, magazines like Time and Newsweek, powerful publishers, gallery owners, critics. We all wanted to be picked, waited to be picked – I was picked, my first novel was lavishly praised in the New York Times and elsewhere, reviewed all over the country, touted on NPR and I was anointed as a writer, a novelist and then a chronicler of dogs, animals, rural life.

I try and tell my writing workshop students that this world has changed, these institutions are not powerful any longer, they do not  anoint the chosen, that we have to choose ourselves, anoint ourselves.  My books hardly ever get reviewed any longer, and I am rarely interviewed by anyone who even pretends to read them.

The chosen are not happy about the new and leveled world of the Internet, there is great whining and complaint, and it is a chaotic and distracted and jarring kind of world. Everywhere, you hear the lament of the picked, the world is changing, culture is dying, the quality and value and coherence of things is eroding. What does this mean for me?

It means that I can’t wait to be chosen any longer, that kind of world is fading. I have to do the choosing, the picking, the anointing of myself. I have to find new ways to communicate, to be relevant, to draw the strength from inside of me to believe that I am worthy of being picked, I choose myself. The bad news, I told my students recently is that there is no point to wanting to be chosen or waiting to be chosen. And that is also the good news. We can choose ourselves, we can find a way, we can do the work. Frightening, sure, but also empowering, exciting and the very definition of being creative. When people ask me for advice about being a writer, being an artist, being an creative, it is almost always the same. Choose  yourself.