July has arrived and I’m over the halfway point through my summer break. Yet, I still have many thoughts on something I heard at the end of the school year some five weeks ago.

The end of the school year is full of celebration and reflection. A tradition in most high schools is for the graduating seniors to write some sort of advice for the yearbook. A local radio show did a couple of segments on this topic: one sharing what they wrote for their yearbook once upon a time and one about what they would write today knowing what they now know.

Something that was said has stuck with me these past weeks. The host shared something to the effect of how successful people never ask for permission or acceptance to be successful. He talked about how a lot of people work on things privately, or not at all, because they don’t want other people to know in order to avoid weirdness and awkward conversations.

How true is this! How many people today haven’t even taken the first step toward their dream or even a hobby because of the risk of failure or having to explain themselves to other people.

What would you try if you knew you wouldn’t fail?

Failure is inevitable, especially when starting something new. But having to explain or justify why you’re not successful can be tough.

For years and years, I never shared my love of writing and desire to someday publish my work. I stuck a toe into the water on Facebook years ago, but I had a code for what I was doing—“Plan B”. I know, right? How silly was that! I don’t even know what Plan B was supposed to mean except that I was working on something for me but I wasn’t ready to share it yet.

Then I finally got over it. I realized that I don’t need someone else’s permission to be a writer. No one needs the approval of others to work toward their dream, start a new hobby, or to try someone new.

Our journey belongs to us alone.

I want to believe that most people in this world are kind and encouraging. There are some who’ll mock you, roll their eyes, or make things awkward (Why don’t you have an agent yet?). But don’t let the few stand in your way of doing what your heart yearns for. Your life is not their journey. Don’t let decades pass you by because fear of failure has you stymied. As the big 4-0 looms over the horizon for me, I realize just how many years I’ve lost because of fear of failure or because of what other people thought of me.

Start today. Make a list. Get the ideas out of your head and make them real. What new hobby do you want to try? What adventure is waiting for you? What is holding you back?

Oh, and if I had the chance to tell my 18-year old self something, it would be this: Spend more time looking inward and trusting in yourself than looking for outside validation.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

~Steve Jobs

It’s no surprise that I like words. I like reading them, writing them, and looking at beautifully lettered projects.

So, I decided a while back that I was going to teach myself calligraphy. Because what’s one more project and hobby?

For those of you interested, here’s the blog (The Postman’s Knock) that I discovered. It’s fabulous and walks you through calligraphy step-by-step. This blog recommends starting with “Faux Calligraphy”. The recovering Type A in me thought, I don’t want to start with Faux anything. If I’m going to do this, then I’m doing it right. Give me the dip pen right away!

But I’m a recovering Type A (parenthood will do that to you). And I can learn to take baby-steps. So I grabbed my Pilot G-2 like the post says, printed off the practice worksheets, and started with my faux calligraphy.

Well, I suck at it.

I have beautiful cursive handwriting so this should have been an easy thing to pick up. Nope. It’s hard. I couldn’t get my curves just right. Things didn’t flow like I thought they should.

It was toward the end of the school year that I first started this new venture, and I didn’t need anymore stress, so I set aside the practice sheets for another time. If you know teaching, the end of the school year is the second busiest time of year and I didn’t need another stressor.

Fast forward to after school let out. My schedule was more open and my head clear.

I pulled out those practice sheets thinking I’d give it another go. And you know what? They weren’t quite as bad as I remembered. In fact, I nailed it with a few of the letters. Maybe I could actually do this. Maybe I could pick up faux calligraphy and then eventually move on to the real deal with a dip pen. Hmm.

Surprise. This post isn’t actually about calligraphy.

It’s about taking a step back, getting some breathing room, and looking at things with a fresh perspective. Maybe, just maybe, things aren’t as bad as they seemed at first.

Sometimes they are. Sometimes the news is bad no matter how much space you give it. But most of the time, it’s not. Most of the time we can’t see just how good things are because we’re too close to the situation.

I find this with my writing all the time. I have what I think is a fabulous idea, I write it, read it, and then shudder. What the hell was I thinking?! This is garbage! I toss the notebook aside and move on with my life.

Weeks, even months later, I pull it back out and think, Hmm. This isn’t so bad. In fact, some parts are really good. Maybe I can work with this.

Space to think, to breathe, and try something new is a good thing.

It’s true what they say about the grass on the other side. Sometimes we need to step away from our own lawns for a bit to really appreciate the beauty in our lives and see just what we’re capable of.

I’m not giving up on calligraphy. I don’t suck at it. I can learn to write beautifully hand-lettered projects.

I believe in myself. I believe in you, too.

What projects are you struggling with? Do you need space so you can then appreciate the beauty of your capabilities?

It’s that time of day … again. Evening. This part of the day and I stare each other down frequently. I was up at 4:30 this morning with a killer headache, looooong day, and a busy evening. My kiddo is finally zonked out and it’s now 7:28pm.

I couldn’t squeeze out any words earlier in the day. You know, during that time when I was fresh, coherent, and somewhat awake.

So, now it’s 7:29 and time to push some words out. And it’s hard.

A friend shared this iceberg image on Twitter. You know this one. We’ve all seen it before. I looked at this image for a while tonight. I thought a lot about what it takes to make things happen. Dedication. Hard work. Habits. Rejection. Fatigue.

Too often people comment to me about how easy my life is. About how I’m able to write because it’s easy for me. And somehow I magically have more time than them. And it just comes easier.

Um, no it doesn’t. Writing is hard. Very hard. The first draft of anything I write absolutely stinks (including this blog post). And I think we all have the same 24 hours in a day. I do choose to use those 24 hours differently from some of my peers. Maybe that’s what they’re referring to. Who knows. I try hard not to invest too much time into what others think because it makes my head spin.

But the point is, no matter what our dreams are, we have to invest the time. We have to get our hands dirty. We have to push through when it hurts, when we’re tired, and even when we just don’t feel like it and we’d rather curl up and read a book. We have to make sacrifices. We have to fight against the resistance pushing against us, telling us that we’re wasting our time, we’re not good enough, and it’ll never happen for us.

We have to do the work.

So, now it’s 7:55 and time for me to get to work. I hurt, I’m tired, and I’m kinda grouchy … but the craft calls.

What have you pushed through lately? What motivates you to keep moving forward?

Next Saturday, I’ll attend the Atlanta Writing Workshop and I am beyond excited! No, this isn’t the first writing workshop I’ve attended. But it is the first where I’ll be pitching my story to agents.

Normally, when I’m at a conference, I’m the one who sits and takes copious amounts of notes, gets lost in her own thoughts, and takes small steps with my WIP.

This time I’ll still be doing much of that, but I’ll also be meeting with two agents for 10 minutes each to pitch my MG paranormal book.

Am I nervous? Heck, ya! This is probably why I signed up for two pitch sessions. I might bomb the first and then get my nerves straightened out for the second.

This is the book that I wrapped up a year ago and gave to some beta readers for feedback. Since then, I’ve cleaned it up further, fine tuned much of it (I hope), and started querying agents. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve only queried 8 agents thus far (that’s another whole blog post), so this is the year that I really try to get my story “out there”.

This week before the conference I’m gifting myself permission to dive back into my story so I know it backward and forward (it’s been a while since I’ve read through it because I’ve been working on Book 2 and other projects). I’m also practicing my pitch, which is a little weird, and involves a lot of talking to oneself.

The Type A that got buried after the birth of my son, poked through and I created a spreadsheet for each chapter of my book. Wow! Has this been helpful in seeing my book as one big picture. I should have done this months ago.

So, here’s to moving forward, talking about my book, promoting my story, meeting fellow writers, and getting outside of my comfort zone. Wish me luck!

If you know me well, you know that each year I have a new theme. My life is a work in progress and I’m always on a quest to squeak out just a little more juice from the orange.

2015 was the year that I discovered Goddesses Never Age by Christiane Northrup, M.D. I’ve always enjoyed listening to her wisdom. But, what has become known as “the goddess book” in my circle, really changed my way of thinking, especially now that I’m feeling my age. I have found any excuse to gift this book to other women in my life. It’s that life-changing. Get a copy today. I’m serious.

2016 was the year of not giving a f*ck. I did read Marie Kondo’s decluttering book. I’m not a natural hoarder so my friends got a chuckle out of me further simplifying. What can I say? I really don’t like “stuff”.

But even better than the decluttering book was Sarah Knight’s parody, The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*uck: How to Stop Spending Time You Don’t Have with People You Don’t Like Doing Things You Don’t Want to Do. 

It goes without saying that if you don’t like the eff word, then stay away from this book. But if you have an open mind and are able to grasp the bigger concept, then I can’t recommend this book enough.

This book made me realize just how much time I was wasting worrying about ridiculous things that simply don’t matter. We all spend far too much time worrying about what other people think of us and not enough considering what we think of ourself compared to … ourself. Where are we on our own life’s journey?

Last year was the year that I set aside other peoples’ opinions of me and focused on what I wanted out of my life. Boy, was that life changing!

Well, I have a new mission for 2017!

This year continues with more from Sarah Knight: Get Your Sh*t Together: How to Stop Worrying about What You Should Do So You Can Finish What You Need to Do and Start Doing What You Want to Do. (I think we can all agree that Sarah likes long titles.)

I have both the DTB (dead tree book) and audio version of this book as well as the super cool prize promo pack from Little Brown. Thank you, Little Brown!

I’m not going to ramble about this book or write a review. Instead, I’m going to focus on what I got out of it and how it has already impacted my life.

The biggest thing for me was taking a look at my already crazy busy life and finding ways to make more time for the things that I want (e.g. writing). My life almost always feels like it’s spinning out of control, and I’m constantly treading water just to keep my head barely above the surface.

But I want more. I really do want this writing thing to take off and become a thing for me.

So I had to get my sh*t together this year. It was either that or just give up.

Action 

I joined a secret Facebook writing group that is all about creating a habit of writing every single day. It’s not focused on the number of words written or even the quality of those words. It’s about showing up every single day and putting your butt in the chair and fingers on the damn keyboard.

The admins of this group have outdone themselves. They have created the most elaborate Excel spreadsheet for hundreds of people to track their progress every single day. We are divided into smaller accountability groups with a leader who monitors and pokes us when needed. They also cheer us on every. single. day.

We are supposed to record our daily word count along with the number of hours spent editing our own work or critiquing others.

Here’s my breakdown for January:

Daily goal: 600 words

Days wrote: 22 out of 31

Total words for January: 12,773 (goal 18,600)

Highest day: 1,838        Lowest day: 27

Now, I could look at those numbers and cringe that I let 9 days go by without writing a single word. Not even one. But I’m not going to cringe. Nope.

How does #gyst play into this? If it wasn’t for me reading that book in December and setting a personal goal to do this, I might not have even written the 12,773 words I did complete in January.

#gyst has forced me to look at my day in a whole new way. I have reprioritized the things that I do so that even 5 minutes here and there can be spent writing words.

For example, it’s amazing just how many words I can write on my phone while blow drying my hair. I’m not kidding! (And, yes, I do have a lot of hair)

Where else have I found time to write: in the car (dictating into my phone), lunch break (5 minutes), 5-10 minutes before I pick up my son from school, getting up 30 minutes earlier, and of course before bed.

If you have a dream that seems to be growing stagnant, or is waving to you in your periphery saying, “Look over here! Look at me! We can do this!”… don’t ignore it. If you need a push, find an accountability partner. If you’re not sure how to make it happen, grab a copy of this book, and I promise it’ll help you view your time and days in a whole new way.