Are You Living Your Fears?

I saw this quote over the weekend and thought it was so apropos for writers.

"Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears." - Les Brown

My dream from a very young age was to be a published writer.  And I did that.  But making my dream to make writing my career was scary.  It's scary for me because writing is like giving something of myself for the public to scrutinize and criticize.  And deep down I feel insecure about a lot of things, like whether my skin is thick enough to take whatever comes.

After having seven books published, I've realized a lot of things about myself.  I know I love writing and that it fulfills me.  I know I'm a better person to be around when I have a little writing time to myself every day.  I know that I work best when I have deadlines and a critique group, and I've learned my skin is a little thicker than I thought.  (Still, though, my heart always drops a bit when I see two star reviews.  But I'm learning to suck it up as part of the business.)

This month, for JumpStartWriMo, I dreamed big.  I made a goal to finish my deep revision and start my new book.  I'm not going to reach that goal by July 1st, (unless I lock my family and all my other responsibilities in the basement or something. Yeah, probably not gonna happen) but I'm so happy with the progress I've made so far and I can't wait to get to the weekend so I can look back and see my accomplishment.  (And I'm going to do another sprint this Wednesday, so I hope you all come.)

But, as I said above, I know I work best with a deadline, so I am giving myself until midnight on June 30 to finish my deep revision of this book.  I'm going to at least finish one of my goals for the month.  And I'm going to reward myself by buying Betsy Brannon Green's new book, Murder by the Way, or Melanie Jacobson's new book, Twitterpated (depending on my mood) if I reach my goal.    

And I'm going to offer a prize to you, my JumpStartWriMo friends as well.  Go back and look at what your goal was on June 1st.  Make a goal to finish it or a major part of it by midnight June 30th.  If you put in the comments what you accomplished, I will send you whatever book I don't reward myself with, (either Murder by the Way or Twitterpated) and reward you with it instead!  And in addition, I think we should have some sort of online party to celebrate how we did, don't you think?

So let's get going this week.  Don't live your fears.  We can do this!  We are awesome!  We are WRITERS!