So a quotation I love, and find extremely applicable to my life, is by Althea Gibson, “I always wanted to be somebody. If I made it, it’s half because I was game enough to take a lot of punishment along the way and half because there were a lot of people who cared enough to help me.”
Whenever you listen to an author’s story, minus a few lucky individuals, you hear about the seemingly endless rejection they’ve taken. I’m no different but I refuse to give up. After years of trying to get a book agent (something I’ve likened to yelling “pick me!” in Times Square on New Year’s Eve) I decided to go the self-published route and giving myself a different path to achieving my dream. Additionally, I am very conscientious when I read anymore, asking what the author did that worked or didn’t work, how was their story different than others like it, and what may have been missing so that I can be more aware in my own writing. I’ve also gotten very good about taking criticism and seeking it out so that I can grow and learn.
All of that being said, my skin is tough not bullet proof.
Thankfully I have a great support network made up of family and friends that understand and listen during moments of self-doubt, worry and embrace my ideas about what I could do as a full time author. Now I talk about both aspects of the support because, you’d think, finding someone to support you during the happy, excited, “I’m going to travel the world on my book profit moments” would be easier than someone who’d support you during the moments of crippling self-doubt.
It’s not. I have a few friends that I won’t even talk to about my books or being a full time writer because they give a condescending “be realistic” attitude towards it, which is really more harmful than anything. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t blatantly put me down, but they aren’t very enthusiastic or blatantly supportive as others are. Whether you’re a writer or artist of any medium, or even just someone putting their true self out into the world, you need a tough skin, but you also need that safety blanket of people who have unwavering belief in you. I count myself very fortunate that I only have a few friends I won’t talk to about the books and that’s okay, they don’t see it the way others in my life do.
Until then, I’ll talk to the friends who listen to me talk about my stories all through dinner and who tell me when I worry how people will react to a new story, forget other people; they’ll be there to support me. Until then, I’ll call my mother in the middle of the night (I was a great baby so she can make up the sleepless nights I spared her when I was an infant) when I can’t get the wording right or need to hash out a scene. Until then, I will keep growing, licking my wounds in private, and getting back in that ring for another fight because my dream is worth it.
My dream is worth every single struggle because in the words of Jimmy Dugan: “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard everyone would do it. The hard…is what makes it great.”