Life's Too Short to Hold Yourself Back

Norman Rockwell's "Girl in the Mirror"

Stephanie, a former student of mine, recently commented in a Facebook post that life is too short.
Wow--needed to hear that.

I had been going through a low time, discouraged, wondering why I keep trying to achieve my writing goals--going two steps forward, three steps back, etc. Typical pity party. I've worked my way through it, but it will most likely happen again. :-)                  

A few days ago, I got in the car and plugged my iPod into the car's radio. It was set on "shuffle" so random songs played. I must add that my husband has loaded hundreds of songs onto both our iPods from many, many genres. We have very eclectic tastes in music. The first song began and it hit me between the eyes.

"Little voice in the back of my head keeps telling me that I'm not good enough, not strong enough. Little girl somewhere in my mind under the covers cause she's too scared of everything to try anything. She talks all that trash telling me I should just give up. I look in the mirror put on my mascara and tell her to just shut up. Cause life's too short to hate yourself to try to be someone else, so quit wasting your time. The days go by way too fast, to let anything hold you back. So don't cry anymore cause life's too short to hate yourself..."

Thanks, Kellie Pickler for getting inside my head with this song.

Accountability

Writing is such a solitary venture. I kind of like that aspect of it because I am only accountable to myself (until an editor or agent takes a chance on one of my manuscripts and I will gladly meet their deadlines). As the youngest sister married to a man who was the oldest child in his family, I have always had someone telling me what to do and when. As I have matured, I find I am very capable of accomplishing tasks without a boss and greatly enjoy it. Writing is one of those tasks.

However, because writing is often such an isolated activity, it becomes necessary to seek out people you trust and who are familiar with the writing of your genre, to critique your work. I guess, maybe, there is a possibility, that there are writers out there who can prepare a first draft, edit it once, submit it to a publisher, immediately get a contract, and win amazing awards. The majority of us are NOT that fortunate. We have to write, rewrite, write again, edit, etc. My problem, like most of my fellow writers, is that I don't necessarily see the silly mistakes in plot and character I make because I am too close to it. I need several sets of eyes, to view my heart spilled on the page.

Another drawback to this "being your own boss" job of writing is that it is extremely easy to let life crowd out your work. Between your paying job, family, church, and (fill in the blank), you can let days, weeks, MONTHS, slide by with little or no writing accomplished.

We have to pay the bills, take care of our family and I am not suggesting anyone quit going to church. We just have to come to an understanding with other people in our lives and ourselves that this is not a hobby that can just be set aside. It is a job. Thankfully, my family is very supportive. For those of you writers, who don't have supportive families, don't use that as an excuse to not write. Others will keep you from your dreams as long as you let them. Carve out some time in your day to write even a few sentences.

I have some writer friends who generously allowed me to be a part of their accountability group. We report how many pages we have written on a daily basis--that's the plan anyway. It seems to be working because I am cranking out pages on my next novel while I wait to hear about my submissions on the third one. A few days ago, I committed across cyberspace that I was going to write 10 pages that day. If it hadn't been for wanting to email the "I did it!" to my friends, I wouldn't have finished those ten pages that day.

So, yes, I like being my own boss but I have to admit--I still need some accountability.