But back to today. Here is a fabulous Tip Tuesday feature from Laurie Edwards that I am just THRILLED to share.
After careers as
a teacher and children’s librarian, Laurie Edwards moved into editing and
writing, where she freelanced for a variety of publishing houses. She writes
for both children and adults under several pseudonyms. In addition to more than
1900 magazine and educational articles, some of her most recent publications
include Rihanna (People in the News) (Lucent 2009), Summer Lovin’ (Wild
Rose Press 2009), Pirates through the Ages (Cengage 2011), and the
5-vol. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes (Gale 2012). “Angels in
the Mist,” a YA story A Community of Writers (Sunbury Press), was
released in April. Laurie is also ghostwriting a YA historical fiction
series. Visit her at her blog; she also blogs at
Downtown YA (downtownya.blogspot.com/) on the 14th and 28th of every month.
Today, Laurie shares an inspirational piece. Take it away, Laurie:
Many people are
closet writers. Some could be published authors—if only. If only I had more
time. If only I knew the right people. If only I didn’t have to keep my day
job. If only I had no kids underfoot. If only I didn’t have to care for my ill
parents. If only…
If you have a
dream (it doesn’t have to be writing), write an If Only list. Now look
closely at each item on that list. I guarantee that for every item on the list,
you can find an example of someone with more If Onlys who succeeded at
your dream. Paraplegics have climbed mountains and run marathons. A single
mother with twelve children wrote a bestseller. A man who worked two jobs and
wrote only during his lunch break completed seven novels. If they did it, so
can you.
So what’s really
stopping you? Most of the time, it’s not your circumstances, it’s fear. Fear of
rejection, fear of success, fear of change, fear of what others might say…
Spend some time identifying the fear (or fears) holding you back. Those are
your REAL If Only’s. Put them on your list.
You can find
ways to reach your dreams. But you have to be willing to face your REAL If
Only’s first.
For me, keeping
my dreams alive while raising five children and holding down a full and a part
time job seemed impossible, but I did what I could. I wrote magazine articles
after the kids were in bed at night. I’ve now have almost 2000 magazine and
educational articles published. It took me close to twenty years to get my
first book published, but I held onto that dream and kept working. A few years
ago, my first two books from two different publishers debuted on the same day!
One was fiction; the other, nonfiction. Since then, I have at least one book
come out every year. This week one of my YA stories came out in an anthology
for charity, and I have a June nonfiction release. I’m hard at work on several
other novels, and recently sent off partials to three editors who requested
them. Hope to have some good news to announce soon.
I often wonder
what might have happened if I’d given up on my dream. What if I’d let all the If
onlys hold me back? I’m so glad I didn’t. If I’d known how long this
journey would take, I might have given up. But I held on and weathered
rejections and struggled to learn the craft (an ongoing pursuit, no matter how
far along you get in your career). So I made it to the first step, but then
what?
Those of us who
have been published quickly discover that holding a book in our hand is only
the start. Suddenly we’re plunged into the world of marketing. For shy authors,
that means chattering teeth, knocking knees, and all the rest of the clichés
that symbolize terror. It means getting over the fear of public speaking,
wading into social media, and learning to answer interview questions on the
fly. It means spending tons of money for little return. And it means going
without sleep as you drag yourself from city to city, booksigning to
booksigning, trying to look happy and friendly and non-terrified and
authorlike.
It means
establishing your author brand, creating and maintaining a website, doing blog
tours, and connecting with as many people as you can—readers, fans, other
authors, editors, agents, booksellers, librarians—and getting them interested
in your books. But it also means you need to do all this while you’re hard at
work writing your next book.
So if you’re
struggling to find the time to write your first book, it may help to know that
all the skills you learn—whether it’s writing for 10 minutes during your break
at work or getting up an hour earlier than the rest of the family or stealing a
few hours on the weekends to slip away to write or holing up in hotel
room/cabin/closet for hours or days at a time—every one of those strategies is
building your published-author muscles. By the time your book comes out, you’ll
be ready to run that publishing marathon.
So what If
Onlys are holding you back? Where are you overextended? What can you drop
to make more room in your life for the things that are important to you?
Setting priorities shows what you value. If you say getting published is your
dream, what are you doing to get there? If you’re already published, what’s
your goal? Winning an award? Being on the New York Times Bestseller
List? Put it on your list, then study what other authors did to reach their
dreams. Take the first step toward that goal. Then the next. It won’t be long
before you arrive at your destination.
Now If Only
I could figure out how to add more hours to every day…
