Chronicles of a Writer in The Making

I want to be a writer. A real, published, pay-my-bills-with-my-words author of articles, books, you name it. It hit me about 4 years ago that this thing that I've always done could actually be a career. (Yes, I know that there are plenty of people who have real, professional writing careers, but it had never occurred to me that I could actually be one of them).

So here I am, 4 years after this epiphany...and I'm still not a professional. Instead, I've stopped and started multiple projects and questioned my abilities each time. At the start of this year, I told myself that I'd have to do things differently if I wanted to take my work to the next level. If I want to be taken seriously, I have to be serious. 

What I'm sharing below is a literal page out of my journal from a day when I was struggling with inspiration:

14 - June - 2020

There are days when I wake up inspired. I could crank out 2 new blog posts, and 1,000 new words for my manuscript with no problem. Words flow out of me and onto the paper just as easily as air flowing in and out of my lungs, and I feel like a writing machine. 

"Yesssss! This is what I'm meant to do with my life!" 

Then there are days like today...when writing feels like a chore and I start thinking of all the things I could clean before sitting down to write (It should be noted that I HATE cleaning). On these days, I usually let myself off the hook, reasoning that I won't do my best work if I'm not inspired, so why bother. "Ehhh I'll just end up editing most of it later and that's just double work." But then I wake up the next day feeling the same way...and the next...and the next...until eventually it's been weeks since I've written anything at all, and I've convinced myself that if I were really meant to be a writer, I wouldn't be struggling so much. 

(THAT is how my first blog ended up dying. I had 83 subscribers and I disappeared on them with zero explanation. All of my hard work, gone to waste). 

It's amazing the bullsh*t we'll feed ourselves when we want to get out of doing something, isn't it? Because that's exactly what it is, bullsh*t. Even the most talented and successful people have days when they develop a case of the Mondays and just don't wanna. Even if you are doing what you love, your absolute dream job, it's still a job, and there will still be days when you look at your to-do list and would really rather just take a nap. (Cardi B talks about it all the time on her Instagram, and my girl is living her best life, Okurrr?)

I KNOW I'm meant to be a writer. I've kept it as a hobby because it's safe. There's no risk attached to something you aren't serious about. "It's just for fun so it's no big deal if I fail." But this is more than that. This blog is a way for me to reach people - my tribe - the people like me who care about the things I care about and who can relate to my work. This is how I reach the people who will buy the book that I will eventually write and publish one day. This is my stepping stone, the catalyst that will launch me into published author status one day. 

No, I don't make any money right now, but it's not about that. Writing is the thing that I would do even if no one paid me a cent (obviously), and if I'm going to turn it into a career, then I have to show up, even when I don't feel like it. 

I share this because I know that there are many of you who can relate. 

Maybe you have a dream that you're finally working on making a reality, and you've talked yourself out of it more times than you can count, simply because it's challenging. Stay encouraged. You have to show up anyway, especially when you don't feel like it, because that is the level of commitment that it's going to take to take this thing from dream to reality.