It's so easy to get bogged down in the things you haven't done, the things you were supposed to do, the goals you haven't accomplished. No one sets out with the goal to be an anti-social procrastinator who worries constantly about how they will pay their bills. When we get in this mindset, the mindset of 'I haven't accomplished what I want to accomplish with my life', It can get very discouraging to branch out and try again.
So, here is what I've done. I've chucked those ideas right out the window. The older I get, the more I realize that sometimes, we won't really even know what we want to do with our lives, or what we will be good at, until we are right in the middle of it. Some of us are out there trying to stick a round peg in a square hole and wondering why it doesn't fit.
I wanted to be traditionally published. I wanted to have an agent. So, I spent years going to conferences, showing my work, getting wonderful feedback, but no one was actually putting my work on contract. I got one amazing company to take on a few of my books, but then they folded. I got one amazing editor pushing some of my work, then she was fired from her publisher.
It can be very easy to take these types of failures personally. To think, well, if they don't want me, maybe my work isn't that good. But then, I let people read it. Other authors. My coworkers. Beta Readers, and they all love it, can't wait for it to hit the shelves, so, what did I do?
I took my books and started publishing them myself. And now, I'm learning what it really means to be my own publisher. I'm reading books on my craft, learning from other self published and successful authors. I'm not one hundred percent there yet, but now I feel like I'm working with the correct tools to get the job done.
I'll still do what I have to do to get my bills paid. I'll still have to do laundry and make dinner. I'll still have days where it feels like I haven't done enough, I'm sure, but it helps to feel that at least now I know, I can always change direction. I don't have to keep pushing my dreams into a box not meant for them. I can let them out to live free alongside me.
So, here is what I've done. I've chucked those ideas right out the window. The older I get, the more I realize that sometimes, we won't really even know what we want to do with our lives, or what we will be good at, until we are right in the middle of it. Some of us are out there trying to stick a round peg in a square hole and wondering why it doesn't fit.
I wanted to be traditionally published. I wanted to have an agent. So, I spent years going to conferences, showing my work, getting wonderful feedback, but no one was actually putting my work on contract. I got one amazing company to take on a few of my books, but then they folded. I got one amazing editor pushing some of my work, then she was fired from her publisher.
It can be very easy to take these types of failures personally. To think, well, if they don't want me, maybe my work isn't that good. But then, I let people read it. Other authors. My coworkers. Beta Readers, and they all love it, can't wait for it to hit the shelves, so, what did I do?
I took my books and started publishing them myself. And now, I'm learning what it really means to be my own publisher. I'm reading books on my craft, learning from other self published and successful authors. I'm not one hundred percent there yet, but now I feel like I'm working with the correct tools to get the job done.
I'll still do what I have to do to get my bills paid. I'll still have to do laundry and make dinner. I'll still have days where it feels like I haven't done enough, I'm sure, but it helps to feel that at least now I know, I can always change direction. I don't have to keep pushing my dreams into a box not meant for them. I can let them out to live free alongside me.