I had a dream last night that was rather interesting. I was sitting at a computer and I had the realization that if I just started and wrote the darn book, it would sell. In the dream, I blew my nose, opened a blank document and wrote something along the lines of “she blew her nose and…”
Now, I could take this as a sign that if I just sit down and start typing on my novel, the words will come, they will be good and it will sell. That’s an exciting and a scary idea at the same time. Or I could take it as a statement that I believe in myself. If the latter, why haven’t I done it? Can it be, as Marianne Williamson says, that I am afraid of success?
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.” ~ Marianne Williamson
Perhaps it’s like having a lottery ticket. I buy a lottery ticket, either scratch off or for one of the drawings, as a game. I don’t particularly think I’m going to win, but since I bought the ticket, there’s that slight chance. Maybe 1 out of every 5 times I’ll win a dollar or two. 1 out of a hundred times I might win twenty dollars. Maybe one day, I’ll actually win something significant. My odds for writing and selling, something I’ve been working on improving my skills at for a while now, have got to be a lot better than that. The great thing is that my enjoyment is not contingent on the selling, I can just enjoy the writing part of it too.
I had an assignment this past week for the Yahoo! Contributor Network. After storms on Thursday, we were without power to Saturday night but I knew I had the assignment to do so, on Friday morning, while my husband was there and my daughter was playing, I sat on the couch with my laptop, which was thankfully fully charged, and made notes then drafted the essay. I found out that, even with my attention divided, I could still write. I’m afraid it’s not going to carry over into fiction very well, but I’ll find out. (We went out to lunch and then stopped by McDonald’s to use the Wifi so I could upload the essay.)
I’m going for NaNoWriMo in August. I may not finish the book in August, in fact I’m sure I won’t, but I will take every opportunity to write and make significant progress. This is the year. This is the year that I write a book and sell it.
Melora Johnson's Muse 
Pat Miran said,
July 31, 2012 at 10:33 pm
Go for it! No one knows where it will take you, but most of life is the journey everything else is just commentary.