You have to be brutally realistic about your present circumstances and wildly unrealistic about your future circumstances (pg 35).
Riding down the streets of Savannah Friday evening, Brian says to me, "You know, baby, you don't have to write your whole book in one day." I laughed because this man knows me all too well. I am "all or nothing" to the core. If I can't do it all at once or if it seems too big to fit in my box of a life, I shut down and do nothing at all. Here is just a little example. For right at two years, I have wanted to redecorate my house. I want new paint, new furniture, new bedding, new pictures on the walls. The problem is, up until recently, it has seemed unfathomable to shell out the cash to do that all at once. The solutions to this predicament seem quite obvious to the sensible person. You either A. put aside money into a specific savings account until you can do it all at once or B. you focus on one thing at a time. Seems pretty doable, right? Well, not for me. Why? Because I want it all, and I want it all now. Setting up a plan to attack it step by step sends my brain into some kind of shutdown mode similar to when I ask my iphone to perform too many tasks at once. Maybe I have decorating Attention Deficit Disorder. Even now, we have made a plan to make all this stuff happen, and things keep working against me so I just get frustrated and want to say, "Forget it! I will sit on this stupid red couch, and I will pout about this carpet forever." I then go into a default grumpy mode forgetting some things just take time and things go wrong. My friend told me when I finally get my new couch, we are having a "couch party." You know when your friend says something like this, they are tired of hearing about your couch predicaments, but hey, even though I am unsure what one does at a couch party, all I need is an excuse to party.
Today, riding home from church, I said to him, "I want to write. I just need a story." to which he replied, "I think you already have the story." I knew what he was referring to. The book I trashed... He thinks I can take that story and make it what it was meant to be. Maybe I can. I am just not sure I am ready to resurrect it yet. I have a lot of ideas swirling in my head with a lot of excuses not to write. A lot of excuses and insecurities standing in the way of my dream. I will always be the first person to do what is needed for someone else, but I will make an excuse in a minute as to why I cannot do something for myself.
Fear is a suffocating thing. I let it bind my hands from the keyboard and take all the breath out of the words I put on paper. I let it take over and lie to me. I hear the voice of fear saying, "Your dream will always be on the tip of your fingers because while you are close, you really just aren't good enough." I ride down the road, alone, and the words flow through my mind, but then, I sit, lap top open...I tell myself, "ready. . .set. . .go." I stare at the blank page, and hear that nasty voice of fear, "Might as well stop now. All those ideas you had in the car. Yeah, they just weren't that good."
We had dinner with friends tonight. The wife of this couple is someone who always challenges me with my writing. She is always honest and pushes me to achieve MY goals. Whenever anyone asks about my life, I usually defer to answering based on what is going on with Brian or the kids. While that is great and important, I think sometimes my dreams get lost in every day life. So, at dinner, she asked me, "What are your goals for 2013? Your PERSONAL goals. Not your family's goals." It stumped me for a minute, but I told her I want to have a good portion of another book written, and I want to run the Kiawah half marathon in November. To accomplish either of these things, I must move step-by-step, and I must drown out the voice of fear.
There will be no short cuts to finishing a second novel. There will be no short cuts to training to run a half marathon. There are no short cuts from average to awesome!
Today, Cinco de Mayo twenty-thirteen, I started my second book. Reminding myself if Kathryn Stockett's had given up after being rejected from publishers sixty times, the world would have missed out on a best-selling novel turned movie, "The Help." I may never have the success of Stockett. But then again. . .maybe I will.
What are your dreams? What are you letting fear take from you?
