Author's Corner - I'm Giving Up

You may have noticed that I've been a little MIA lately.

I've been dealing with all those wonderful things that come with the end of a semester:

big projects that make me want to cry,

finals that I honestly just don't care about at this point,

and figuring out things with our apartment contract (hellooooo moving!).

Mostly though, I haven't been posting because I've been struggling with my perspective on writing.

Particularly, on writing my novel.

I made you a promise, and I intended to stick to it, but I found myself lacking motivation.

I was tired of my story - I've read and worked on the same thing for what feels like forever, and it's honestly gotten kind of boring at this point.

Beyond that, I found myself asking myself: Why?

Why am I doing this?

What do I want to gain from this?

Do I really want to go through all of the struggles and rejections that come from trying to get into the publishing industry?

And what I decided was this:

I'm giving up.

Not on my novel, not on you, not on myself, but on what I thought I needed to achieve to be successful.

I'd considered self-publishing before, pretty seriously, but I had been trained to think of that as the easy way out, or the way to go if you aren't a "real writer."

That's like saying moms who had a C-section aren't real moms!

Preposterous!

What it comes down to is this:

I have a story I want to tell.

I want other people to enjoy it.

I want the satisfaction of holding it in print, all bound and covered.

Those are my goals.

That's what I want.

For me, the best way to achieve that is to look into self-publishing.

I'm not saying traditional publishing is bad by any stretch. That's like a C-section Mama saying that traditional birth is bad.

What it comes down to is what is best for the mom and the baby.

This book is my baby, and what I think is best for it (and for me) is to get it finished and get it out there!

I have 6 days left to finish this book, and I expect y'all to be angry at me if I don't post on the 25th with my first chapter.

So my attitude is this:

I'm giving up on the expectations I thought I had to meet to be successful.

I'm choosing to be successful in the way I want to be successful.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some writing to do.