Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Not all dreams are created equal...

My last post was about the culmination of a dream for a dear friend of mine.

This post is about my dream...(well, one of them, anyway)

There were a couple of comments to my last post along the lines of my turn would come, too. But you see, all those things Angi aspired to are not really things I aspire to.

Oh, sure, I'd like to be published; otherwise why am I here and why have I invested eight years and a chunk of change in learning the craft? Scratch that—until recently it's been more like a hobby than a pursuit of a dream. Hobbies cost people money. (Right Mom?) And for their time and effort and money, they have an end result such as a craft or memories of adventures and good times.

For my investment, I have knowledge, several books worth of fan fiction, a few possible books-in-waiting, and a lot of wonderful friends. If that was all I ever got out of this endeavor, it would definitely be worth the money.

Until now, I wasn’t really ready to seriously pursue publication. There were many reasons, I suppose, not that I could name any of them.

But now, I’m ready. I want it.

I want to be a published author. I’m ready to embrace it, to work towards it, to really invest the time and effort, and blood, sweat and tears to achieve it.

But before you say, “Yay, Jen.” or, “You, go, girl!” I have to confess I want it so badly because I really, really want to get out of debt.

During a conversation with a friend and published author, he commented that he was looking forward to getting his royalty check. I was nosy, so I asked, “Hundreds or thousands?”

He said thousands. His first book came out one year ago this month.

I about fell out of my chair. I want royalty checks a year later that are thousands of dollars.

Now that I’ve got my goal (publication) and my motivation (getting out of debt) I have to overcome the conflicts and obstacles. But that’s another whine--I mean post for another day.

What’s your dream? Have you achieved it yet? If not, are you working towards it?

2 comments:

Regina Richards said...

I'm glad you've come to a place where you know what you want and why. I'd say that's a big step.

My dream is to write what I want to write, love the final product, and be able to measure my success in some tangible way, even it it's just that I'm enjoying myself so much I'm whistling while I work.

Jen FitzGerald said...

Thanks, Regina.

I miss you at meetings! Hope to see you Saturday.