My writing life is in a deep transformation. I will tell the
details eventually. For right now, you just need to know that. My whole writing
world is changing. The players. The game. And, the goal.
And, though the change has been going on for almost a month, and I am at great peace with the change, I woke up this morning with a sad, frustrated, stuck feeling about my writing
life.
The need to submit, to write for a goal, to have a deadline
set, to share my world, my stories, my voice was gnawing at me.
If this were two years ago, my method to get myself to write
would have been to beat myself up a lot over all the failures I’ve had, beat myself into
submission, literally, into submitting something, somewhere…in desperation and
in fear. If this were two years ago, I would try to use failure as a motivator
to write.
Not any more.
Sure, I heard the beating myself up words tumbling around in the head. Something like this: Look at you. You’re 40 years
old and nothing to show for it. No book deal. No new publishing credits in
years, other than your own blog or your own literary anthology. You have
nothing to show for all the years of school and study in creative writing. YOU
SUCK.
Then I was like, Hi
there beating-myself-up-words. Nice to see you. Um, I’m not gonna buy into you
right now. Actually, can you go fuck yourself? I’m gonna go…
WRITE.
Yep. I started to write. I started a blog post for another
blog and then I started this.
Yes, yes, it’s true. I haven’t had anything published in a
few years by anyone other than myself. Okay… I had an article in the SCBWI
Bulletin a year ago. But in the scheme of everything, my publishing goals are
still not reached. And, with the changes going on, it’s possible that my
journey make take even longer than I once thought.
And, yes, I am 40 years old. But….look at other folks over
40 who had their big successes later in life:
So I take that. I take that concrete, real evidence that
success after 40 is possible. I take, too, that my definition of success and my
publishing goals may have to change. But who cares? Really? Who cares?
Not me. Not me.
