“You sound defeated.” That was a text message I received from a good friend the other day during an exchange with them about my book journey. Between being pulled in ten different directions, daily wonkiness at work and not seeing any real progress on my novel journey, I felt some type of way. I wouldn’t say discouraged, but more annoyed than anything. Mainly because it was difficult to sit down and spend time on planning and determining next steps to get things going. Then I would work on a few pitches to magazines on topics that are definitely in my novel. I’ve been able to get some out, but not a lot and things have moved so slow as far as connecting with editors I would love to work with.
So, when I saw my friend’s conclusion about my status, I concurred in my mind – for a quick second. Then I scrolled back up and read through our conversation. I initially told them how I didn’t like what the publishing world looked like at the moment (I’ll probably rant more about that in a future post…between the AI rumors, social divide and personal agendas, I just can’t. Bleh..) and that I was pretty much done with trying to appease gatekeepers with constant literary pitching. Please know that it’s not about being rejected, I am way past that point. It’s about protecting my story from being mishandled or misunderstood because people insert their own personal agendas into everything these days. I didn’t feel defeated, but I guess I sounded defeated in my ranting to them. My ranting helped because I was at a crossroads and beating myself up at the same time because I hadn’t spent the time required to work on the self-publishing journey.
There’s been a lot of precious time invested into my novel. I want to be able to deliver my story to my audience in the most intimate way possible – with my own dialogue and intuition. It’s taking more time than I thought it would, but everything is for a reason because within this time, I’ve been able to gain a lot of clarity and confidence on how my story should be handled. Reaching this point feels great.
The mind can be a trip, though. At some point I realized I was dwelling on one small aspect of our exchange that didn’t define it as a whole. I found myself criticizing what I thought I’d failed to do, failed to follow-up on and so forth. I had to shut down those negative thoughts and regroup. I was not a dead-beat writer. I was on a journey with a lot already accomplished and to be thankful for. Shake it off, girl!
When I finished rereading out conversation, I realized I misread their text and forgot that there was important context included. It said, “I understand. You sound defeated but it will be okay.”
Thank you, friend!
I had to get some clarity and encourage you to do the same. Get some clarity. Get some peace of mind. Get some powerful reminders that you are doing the dang on thing. Check out the latest resource for you here.