Skip to main content

My God! What have I done?

Faith.  Publishing, starting a business, growing a garden . . .it takes a lot of hard work and FAITH



The lyrics of that song have been running through my head all weekend and if you could see my face, I am living it.  What have I done?  

I've done something I am not prepared for, I have little/no experience, and I have grave doubts about my ability to see it through . . . eek!

Sounds like having a baby doesn't it?  

But no, I did not do that.  My children are now doing that (and holy hannah, are they producing winners!).

What I did was finally publish my Master's Thesis (that I defended seventeen years ago), in preparation for publishing the trilogy I've been working on for the last four years. It's my first baby and I loved it and I'm so proud of it--The Confusing and Miraculous Life of Kate James.  And my other three?  Well they are three stand alone books about three different generations.  There's a little drama, a little mystery, a little magic, and a LOT of love.

I'm surprised by how insecure this process has made me.  I'm forty-seven for heavens sake.  What do I have to lose, right?  Just do it, who cares if nothing ever happens?  If no one reads it? If it's a horrific dismal failure?

Hmm.

Turns out, I do.

But that's not stopping me.

I just read a facebook post today from someone I grew up with.  He said that we should do something that pushes us beyond our comfort zone--something that has a 50/50 chance of success or failure--so we can see what we are made of.  Who we are inside, what lengths we can go, what challenges we can face and obstacles we can overcome--even if you don't--get exposed when we take that risk.  Even if you fail, you still put yourself out there for the fates to give you a chance to SUCCEED.  

Dang.  That's inspiring.

After arguing with my writing group that I just wasn't ready for the past five years . .. I threw up my hands and said, I'll never be ready, so LET'S DO THIS!

I'm 99% nothing will come of my attempt, but I realize that's not really the point.  The point is, I did something I was terrified of doing.  I did something I am pretty sure I'm going to fail at, but I DID IT ANYWAY.

Dang, there is freedom in that.  Like wild liberation that makes you want to do crazy pagan dances outside under the moon (or sun with all your neighbors watching, yelling, "Pay me no mind!").

And I've engaged an amazing editor--one I pay--and I'm paying for advertising and I'm making Facebook pages and instagram accounts--all of which is unknown and I am quite frankly bad at, but I'm going for it.  Absolutely no guarantee of success; in fact, a pretty massive chance of dismal failure.  But that's not stopping me. 

I'm doing this.  

And you?  What are you doing?  What mad talent are you harboring, dreaming of making a career, that you're hiding away?  Hmm?  Yeah, life is way way WAY too short.  Try it.  Take a risk.  Invest in yourself. 

You may fail, but dang . . . what if . . . what if you succeed?




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Best Kind of Tired

  My often daily life . . . (John is two feet away—I can’t do all of them by myself) Last week, every single time I sat down, I almost instantly fell asleep.  I kept telling John, I have the sleeping disease.  What is going on?  Am I getting old?  Is it the covid after effects?  What on earth? He didn’t have any answers for me because he was doing the same thing.   We didn’t really do anything for seven days straights.   And our kids joined us in the sleepy, do nothing, lazy slug bug state. It wasn’t until this morning as I was looking over the pictures of the summer that I realized why. . . We literally haven’t stopped ALL summer long—one awesome amazing trip/visit/fun after the other.  It’s like we are making up for last years “staycations.”  Holy hannah have we ever made up for it.  Just about did ourselves in playing and hugging and kissing and caring for babies. Highlights of the summer (in no particular order): Cousin sleepove...
Post a Comment
Read more

Green Bananas

What I miss the very mostest about being young is that ability to forget everything but the very moment you are in. If you are tired, you sleep. If you are hungry, you eat. If you want to read, you pick up a book and read. If you want to watch a movie/show/tv, you sit your little butt down and watch. If you're a mama, you have to think about nine thousand things before you do anything. If you are tired, you stay tired because you just don't have time to sleep. If you are hungry, you'd better go grocery shopping and get cooking because no one is really going to eat if you don't. If you want to read . . . well, you always want to read, but the laundry, cleaning, weeding, talking, caring, fixing, loving must happen before that happens. If you want to watch a movie, well, you can try, but really, you probably will just fall asleep. And be so happy for that sleep because you know, if you're me and you only watch tv with your whole family surrounding y...
1 comment
Read more

Out with the Old, In with the New

Oh, yeah, I see that I wrote five times last year. Woot woot. Does that tell you what happened to my "hours and hours"? Yep, absorbed into the cares of life. This is what I dissevered after the first week, even though the kids were gone, I still had to get the same amount of laundry, grocery shopping, errand running, bill paying, house cleaning done.  It was actually an illusion to think I had all this time to do what I want--a beautiful illusion that kept me going for years, but an illusion none the less.  That said, having to do all the daily grind stuff WITHOUT five people begging, asking, demanding, complaining, and hollering for my attention is a lovely gift all in itself. So how do I spend my days?  Seeing as the blog insanity has died down and I'm quite sure pretty much no one will read this, I'll tell you! First, I get up between 5 and 5:20am to do some sort of exercise with John (we switch between running, yoga, and some sort of high intensity car...
3 comments
Read more