You are smarter, braver, and more capable than you know.
The best advice I’ve (Amy) ever gotten.
This very simple statement allows us to leave the space where we only measure ourselves by our proven skills, and move INTO a space where we are fully aware that there are heights and depths and mountains and canyons that we CAN reach. While the rest of the world might measure you by your proven achievements, YOU must measure yourself by the achievements yet to be had. Without living in the presence of your full potential, you won’t seek to reach it. You won’t even know it’s there!
What frightens you about becoming an author?
Is it the work that you’ll have to put in to writing, revising, and marketing?
Is it the fear that you won’t get picked up by an agent and you’ll “have” to self-publish? Or is it the fear of the initial financial cost in self-publishing?
Are you afraid that your book will just…suck?
These are all reasonable fears, and ones we understand well. Working with indie authors does mean that we’re privy to all kinds of emotions and fears and raw human neuroses! We understand how emotional the process of creating a book MUST be. You’re going to hit peaks and valleys and exceed expectations and reach roadblocks and it’s all part of the process. You’re going to have a . . . ahem, “shitty first draft,” because no one has a first draft that ISN’T shitty. But the potential of an idea, of where it goes after trudging through the muck of fears and hard work and roadblocks and zapped energy, is ALWAYS there. It’s there before you even had your book idea. The word “potential” would lose its meaning if it only referred to values that had already come to fruition. It means growth yet to come.
Today, authors-to-be, I would like you to take time to think of what you’d like to see your book do, where you’d like it to go. What goal would you like to meet? This dreaming is the first step of the process.
Live in your potential, not your past!
And here I woke up this morning measuring actual accomplishments while completely ignoring my future goals. Thanks for helping me get my head back on straight.
Glad this post was helpful Gwynneth! Happy writing and thank you for the post!
I like the idea of leaving others to keep track of our accomplishments and looking at what we can do.
It sort of undercuts my tendency to look only at what I’ve done (and how recently) and add a sort of statute of limitations that somehow works out to having accomplished nothing.
Focusing instead on what I am doing (rather than what’s completed) is a boost to me– b/c I’m always working…
Thanks for the post Amy Jane! Can definitely relate to tracking accomplishments. We all do it. However, it’s good to know that you’re writing steadily and can then focus on your movement forward.
Wonderful post. Particularly fortifying after a really rough writing day.
I use whiteboards around my apartment to manage my writing goals. They’re helpful in keeping the “eyes on the prize” so to speak.