Dreams Undefeated

My mom sent me a inspirational article she'd found somewhere. The final line said:

The truth is, you're not defeated until your doubts and regrets take the place of your dreams.

I'm embroidering this on a pillow somewhere, tattooing it on my forehead, spray painting it on my office wall. Anything necessary to keep this in mind. Why? Because the reality of a writer can be tough. So often our doubts and regrets get in our way. It can be hard to push that send button, to give your manuscript to crit partners, to put it all out there when there is a very good chance it's going to get annihilated.

Are we going to get rejected?  You betcha.

Are we going to have crit partners hand us manuscripts that are so shredded the paper barely holds together?  Yep. Been there, done that, will do it again. Soon (love you guys) ;-D

Are we going to have agent after agent and publisher after publisher say "No thanks, it's not quite good enough?" Oh yeah. Frequently.

Will we have readers and critics hate our books and give us scathing reviews?  Definitely.

Do you have a file full of unfinished manuscripts that you've started and then banished to the dark recesses of your sock drawer?  Probably more than any of us would like to admit :)

Does all of this equal failure, collapse, DEFEAT?

Oh no. It most certainly does not. Why? Because no matter how many times we get knocked down, we get back up. We write more words. We send out more queries. We revise for the thousandth time and then we sit down and revise again. The more we do it, the better we get, the better our chances are of finally succeeding.

We are never out of the game unless we take ourselves out. Only when we are too afraid, too disappointed, or too pessimistic to continue on are we truly defeated. NO ONE can defeat you. Those rejections can't defeat you. Those bleeding red manuscripts aren't defeat. They are opportunities for improvement.

I've heard those who say that no matter how hard you try, you won't make it. The odds are too steep. There's too much competition. The market is too tough. And anyone who tells you otherwise is just being nice or overly optimistic. Well, all of that may be true.

But I know one thing for certain. I definitely won't make it if I stop trying. I was scared stiff to send my non-fiction book out to agents. I didn't have the platform. I had the experience but didn't have the "professional" background. I did it anyway. And I'm watching my dream come true. Someday, I'll see a novel with my name on it on those shelves as well. If it never happens, well, it won't be because I let my doubts get the best of me - because that would be something I'd regret the rest of my life.

The reality is, our chosen path is hard. It's downright brutal.

But the truth is, you're not defeated until your doubts and regrets take the place of your dreams.

Mr. Sandman is on Vacation

Quote of the Day:

If I'm trying to sleep, the ideas won't stop. If I'm trying to write, there appears a barren nothingness.
~Carrie Latet

How many of you get your ideas from dreams? Does your brain go on overdrive the second you lay down to sleep?

I’m curious because I’ve noticed that when I am up in the middle of the night, plugging away on one of my WIPs, there is almost always at least one writer buddy of mine doing the exact same thing. In fact, the middle of the night is the time it seems to be the easiest to get a hold of my friends, the time when we chat and email the most. Also, most writers I’ve asked rely on some sort of sleep aid to get to sleep at night. Because, like me, they suffer from that irritating habit the mind has of saving up every worthy thought and replaying it over and over as they try to sleep.

Like Ms. Latet said in the quote above, sometimes I will sit, staring at my computer or open notebook, and get nothing. But the second I lay down and close my eyes, a million thoughts start dancing through my head. Some persistant enough that I have to get up and write them down. Taking a shower or doing the dishes often loosens the mind muscles as well. But trying to get to sleep is the worst.

In fact, it’s so bad that I will often stay up until I can barely keep my eyes open, just so I will fall asleep as soon as I hit the pillow (doesn’t usually work, but it does help). I assume this happens because when I try to sleep, my body is still, the house is quiet, I have nothing else to focus on. It probably wouldn’t be so bad if I wasn’t married…it took my husband a while to get used to my tossing and turning. On a good night I can fall asleep within an hour. A bad night it could take 3 or 4.

I also got in the habit of waking up constantly during the night (courtesy of my children) and have never really gotten over that. So I have very vivid dreams as well. Now, this is kind of cool. I’ve gotten a lot of really good ideas this way. But the preliminaries of falling asleep are a bit irritating.

So I was wondering how many other writers are insomniacs…or at least night owls, like me. Do you fall right to sleep or toss and turn for hours? If you have learned how to shut your brain off…share your secret! :D