My birthday was Sunday. Monday morning a woke up to the best present. I won a spot in Lani Diane Rich's Revision class over on StoryWonk. I am so excited!! I've been listening to her weekday podcasts and aside from being super fun, she manages to get the big concepts about what works in a story into brief, laugh-filled 10 minutes bites. Seriously. At the very least, you should listen to her talk on owning your greatness. Go on. I'll wait.
It is such a struggle to believe in yourself as a writer. No matter how great your manuscript, there always seems to be room for improvement. To the unpublished author, getting an agent or a contract seems a well-nigh unattainable goal. Even published authors face lousy reviews and rough revisions. Everyone seems willing to line up to tell you no. It is hard to pick yourself up when you're feeling battered and bruised. It's hard to try again with no promise of success. The only thing I no for certain is that if I don't try, it's a regret I can't live with.
That's true of all of the things that really matter to me in life. When I had my children, there was no promise that they'd be okay. Or even that I'd be a good mother. There have skinned knees and tears. There have been awkward questions. There have been heartrending things I've had to tell my children. Maybe I haven't always been a good mother, but I've been a good enough mother. They are both in high school now and they are young women of whom I'm as often proud as I am provoked. I think those are pretty decent results.
When I got married, there was no promise, beyond our vows, that our marriage would last, that we would be one of the lucky couples. But I believe in my husband and I believe in love. We've been married nearly twenty years now. I just can't even imagine my world without him.
It's obvious that I believe in love: I write romance. It's easy to believe that loving someone can change your life for the better. It's so much more frightening to have that faith in myself.
This is a great post Julia. You've hit the nail on the head; there are no guarantee's in life, but if you don't give it all you have, you will always regret not following your dreams.
ReplyDeleteCongrats on the Lani Diane Rich class - I follow her and I thought her workshops sounded great! Let us know how it goes :)
Thanks! I'll be sure and let you how the class progresses.
ReplyDeleteDo you follow her Lucy March blog? I found it during nano and it is just the nicest most postive group. Plus she posts super early and I'm usually up by 6:30 on school days ;)
Hi Julia, how true this is! Self belief is arguably the quality we need most as writers and it's often the most difficult thing for us to develop. I mean, what other careers are there where you are constantly told you're not good enough? Lol. Sometimes when I get a rejection I think I must be mad trying to write. But when you do have a success, however, small, there's nothing like it! But we just have to keep going. It has been said that writing is 90% talent and 10% perseverance; I think it's more like 10% talent, 30% perseverance, 10% luck and 50% patience. Or something like that! (Maths isn't my strong point.)
ReplyDeleteYou're right. I think often the source of writers' dejection is impatience rather than actual failure.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Julia! And a belated Happy Birthday to you!
ReplyDeleteThanks,Lacey!
ReplyDeleteThis is a fab post, Julia. Soooo true too. That's why I got up the gumption to first sub my writing - didn't want it to be one of those things I regretted not doing. But it is hard when you get those nos. And they can go on for years too. Plus that impatience thing you mentioned is right, definitely is in my case. The impatience is terrible. And when you've worked on something for 11 months (due to wait times) only to be told no yet again...well, nuff said. :-)Anyway, I'm still at it so perhaps there's some steel in me yet.
ReplyDeleteI think there's a lot of steel in you! In fact, I might have need of some of my own in a few weeks and I'm hoping you'll let me borrow that determination.
ReplyDeleteJulia, water tight guarantees would (could!) take all the fun out of subbing. The waiting and wondering and hoping and anticipation are all part of what makes it so great when success finally arrives. At least, that's what I tell myself as I wait and wonder and hope :-)
ReplyDeleteRobyn/Chelsea
Honestly, there's so many fun people hanging around waiting with me that I'm not minding too much.
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