On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.
Award-winning author Greer Macallister shared the following inspirational post on the Writer Unboxed blog:
You can do anything. You can write a book. You can get an agent, if that’s what you want, a real powerhouse. You can get a great advance. You can click with your editor in a life-changing way. You can emerge from the editing process with a beautiful book, a wonderful book, a book readers will love. You can write a bestseller. Then you can write another one, a second book that readers embrace just as warmly as the first. You can do this over and over. You can be a career writer for the rest of your life.
Is it hard to believe statements like this? Impossible? Well, in some cases, of course it is. Things like selling thousands of copies aren’t truly within our control. When I say “anything is possible,” I don’t mean it literally.
But I want you to believe it, for yourself, just for a while.
Writers seeking publication go through so many tough times. The “query trenches” can be so disheartening, so full of rejection. Once you’ve published a book, things aren’t much better: you still spend so much time worrying about whether your book will be well-received, and even if it is, the chance for disappointment with your second book is right around the corner.
The world will tell you that you can’t have the dream you want. Writing your book will be demoralizing, slow, rocky, or worse. Life will get in the way. Agents will reject you. You will have disappointing experiences with editors or other people important to your process. Your life’s work may be met with either a sea of negative reviews or resounding silence. Copies of your book will sit unpurchased. The odds are against you at the beginning, in the middle, the whole way through.
More than likely, you will hear, over and over, that what you want is impossible.
So, for a while, don’t listen.
Try the exercise. Tune out the voices saying that you can’t and tune in to your own voice telling you that you can.
Believe that you can make it happen. Believe that your mind is capable of a masterpiece. Believe that your book will find a grateful waiting audience. Believe that rejection is temporary, because it is. Believe that no one can stop you but you. Believe that your work deserves publication as much as anyone else’s. Believe that your idea will rise above the fray. Believe that a world is waiting for you, a community of writers, that will welcome and celebrate you as one of their own. Believe that no matter what obstacles life throws your way, you will persevere, pushing forward again and again to pursue your ultimate goal.
Believe that anything is possible.
How does that feel?
Joanne Guidoccio 