A Tough Love Post For A Dear Friend

How Bad Do You Want It?

That's the question you have to ask yourself. How badly do you want to be a writer? How badly to you want to see your writing sell?

You have talent. You can write a damn good story. So the question becomes do you have the drive, the ruthlessness as it were, to take your career to the next level?

We've all heard before that publishing success is part talent, part luck and a whole lot of perseverance. What does that mean? It means that anyone, and I mean ANYONE, can become a published author if they work hard enough. Not just at learning their craft, but at learning to make writing a priority.

I know life has put a lot on your plate. There's family, there's work, there's obligations. Life happens. There's no way around it. But life is always going to happen. There's always going to be obligations - kids that need caring for, husbands that need attention, work that needs to be done. No one is ever going to sit you down and tell you to take time for your dreams. Why should they? They have dreams of their own.

If you want to be a writer, then you have to tell life to wait a little bit. The work, the obligations, the family - they aren't going away, but they won't implode if you take an hour or two for yourself either.

But I feel guilty, you say. I feel selfish. It took me a long time (and a whole lot of self-discovery) to be able to say - yes, you are being selfish. And so what? Don't you deserve dreams and goals as much as the next person? Would you tell your daughter or your son to put aside their aspirations because chasing their dreams made them "selfish"? No, you wouldn't. So why do you tell yourself that? As for the guilt....I got news for you. It ain't ever going away. As long as we're women and mothers and wives, we'll feel guilty. You have to learn to swallow the guilt, balance it with all the other things you do for your family, and put your dreams first anyway.

But I'm scared, you say. What if I don't have what it takes? What if I try and I fail?

Okay, what if you do fail? So what? Isn't it better to have tried and failed than to have never given it your all? There comes a time when we have to stop using our fear and insecurity as a crutch to justify our procrastination. We're all scared. We all think our writing sucks. We all worry the editor will hate what we submitted. And yes, sometimes our writing doesn't pass muster. Sometimes we get ripped on contest entries or receive a form letter on a manuscript that took us a year to polish. Failure, like life, happens. Remember that book title, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway? That's what you must do. You must swallow your fear just like you swallow your guilt, and write.

Because as I said before, anyone can be a published author if they are willing to sacrifice, work and persevere. The only person holding yourself back from achieving your dreams is yourself. Not life, not obligations, not fear -- you. You have the power to do whatever you want. But you have to step up and take that power. Stop sabotaging yourself. Stop enabling your own procrastination. It's time to ask yourself, do you want to be a writer, or a person who writes.

In other words, how bad do you want it?