Never put off your dreams until tomorrow.
No better time than right NOW, no matter the outcome.
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About two years ago, I quit my job to follow my dreams.
That's the easy way to put it. But the complexity of the event has a ton more nuance than just that. I'm married, with two kids--two rambunctious boys, both under five, more specifically. Life is crazy. We have a mortgage and bills to pay, so it wasn't as simple as just quitting. My wife and I had to come to an agreement, make plans and prepare for the life switch. It's been more or less smooth since, but certainly not easy or simple. With my wife going back to her full-time job, my job became capital "D" Dad and for any stay at home parents out there, you know being a SAHP (sounds like "Sap," funny enough) is incredibly difficult, let alone trying to balance those duties with writing novels. And I'm still following those dreams of publishing. I haven't captured it yet and who knows if it will ever be enough to be a main income. I waited a long time to write my first novel.
Through the years, I'd keep a journal from time to time and started more novels and short stories than I can remember. My main problem was two-fold, in that I believed in two principle writing lies: 1. I needed inspiration. 2. I needed the perfect writing conditions. In virtually every story or movie featuring a writer, there's consistently a cabin in the woods with a typewriter and that lightning bolt of inspiration where they rattle off a novel in a matter of hours. And when they type out "The End," it's just that: The End. No edits, no further rewrites, no more drafts. Boom. The End. Off to an editor and here comes the multi-figure check. When I didn't have a "lightning bolt" of inspiration or that ideal setting to go to, I kept telling myself that I was a failure. I wasn't a real writer. I believed the lies. The reality is that nothing is perfect on a first draft. Writing is rewriting. And writing is the deliberate discipline of stapling your pants to the chair and just DOING IT. You can't do anything with a blank page, but you can do a ton with a 70,000 word draft. It ain't gonna be perfect, but that first draft must exist before the final draft can. And there is no perfect spot to write. For me, my main writing exists inside two hours (from about 1 until around three), when my kids nap or have quiet, personal time. And even though it's "quiet" time, my kids are often running in, interrupting my writing to ask questions or to play for a moment. But it's what I have to do. Even though I have a specific time for writing, a section of the day I've carved for myself, I still write in the margins. Between naps and activities and dropping my boys off at school. When you have the dream, you make it happen, even it's just on the side, in the margins of life. "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."
--Benjamin Franklin I think about this quote a ton. The main aspect I dwell on is the single word question that inevitably follows each time I read the quote: HOW? Especially when you see the person behind the quote, Benjamin Franklin. How do you write something WORTH reading or do something WORTH writing? I get hung up on the idea of WORTH. What is worth the time or money (or someone else's for that matter)? And I come back to the idea of what stokes your passion. What is worth it to you? And that part of it has to be honest and true and real, down to your soul. You can lie to others, but you can't lie to yourself, not forever anyway. What's worth it to you? What's worth spending your energy, time and life on? That's what you need to write. |
AuthorI am a writer. I write. Archives
January 2021
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