What Makes For Success?
You name it, I will write it. Does this let me be a success?
I love to work on fiction. I began writing sci-fi at age nine, and I have been working on my fantasy series, The Source Chronicles, for about twenty years. There is something about fantastic worlds that I just love to write out. It’s exciting, and frequently invigorating.
Almost six years ago I began regularly blogging. One weekly post has become three, and the theme of the blog more pointedly conscious reality creation. I love working on my blog posts, Positivity, Pathwalking and Crossing the Bridges, as much as I enjoy writing fiction now.
Then, for added fun, I do different types of professional writing. I do SEO and web content, resumes, and other business writing like press releases and marketing materials. While this is not my favorite kind of writing, it is still writing, and still makes me happy.
Currently, I am working on finding new means to promote my works, and to write professionally for more money.
This is a challenging step. One of the reasons why I call this post Crossing the Bridges is because I see myself writing in three separate worlds. In one, I write novels and stories of sci-fi, Fantasy, Steampunk and more. The next world I work on this blog, the three posts to it per week, and now at least bi-weekly posts to my recently revised Author website. Last, there is the professional writing work, the stuff I do pretty much only for money, because I can.
To write or not to write? There is no question.
There is, to my mind, a gap between each of these worlds. They are three totally separate concepts. Not simply different genres, but my whole approach to each is going to be unique. How I work on novels is quite different from how I work on these blog posts. The professional writing is almost entirely unrelated, but it’s still writing.
It is my desire that all three of these forms of writing should earn me money. I want to maximize my potential, and I want to be able to show the world that I am a successful writer.
Of course, this leads to a wholly different problem. How do you define success? This is something that has caused me no end of problems. Why? Because all too often my equation of success has been based on what others have implied, suggested, expected, or otherwise told me.
Our society, for example, frequently equates wealth with success. If one is successful, one has money. How much money is often a matter of degree, really. Doctors, lawyers, high-powered financiers, moguls, entrepreneurial business professionals are whom we usually associate as successes.
You are, no doubt, familiar with the notion of the starving artist? You probably also have heard that writers don’t make a lot of money, in particular novel writers. Unless, of course, you become a best-seller, or you manage to sell the movie or TV rights to one of your works. Many well-meaning people throughout my life have told me this. Often, it’s been meant as “realistic” and “good” and “helpful” advice.
I have written before about well-meaning and well-intentioned resistance. Naysayers who think and feel that they are looking out for that which is best for you throw a wet-blanket over your dreams. This certainly makes conscious reality creation particularly challenging.
You get to define success.
The thing is, if you believe that success includes endless money, a big house, a fancy car, any or all of the above, you’re seriously limiting yourself. When I have made this my main focus, I have found it massively difficult to find satisfaction in anything I have done.
Redefining success can go a long ways towards bringing more satisfaction. This has, I am sure you won’t be surprised, been a challenge for me. I have to overcome my rather skewed expectation of success in order to not just say this, but to feel it.
What is success? For me, I still believe what I grew up believing. Wealth, which included money and things. What do I want to be success? Achievement. I have had two short stories published in anthologies. I have self-published two fantasy novels, one Steampunk novel, the first year of Pathwalking, the humorous narrative of the time surrounding my accident, and a novelette written much in the style of Paulo Coelho. That is eight publications!
Beyond that, I had published many articles for Patch.com, back when they hired writers more than relied on bloggers. I also had a couple articles published for a magazine, and several advertisements.
Does that say successful writer to you? Maybe I am not on a best-seller’s list, and maybe I have not sold the movie-rights to something I wrote…as of yet. But I have published, and I have two more works completed, one of which awaits me editing it, the other is actually with an editor now. That brings me to ten completed works. If that’s not success, then what is?
The final challenge: believe it.
Deep down, I still struggle with this. Why? Because I still believe the notion that without the lucrative contract or far-broader sales of my work, I am not a success. I still am listening to the messages of society, and struggling to disbelieve them.
It is important for me to accept that I am a success. I am a published author, I have incredible friends, an amazing wife, a roof over my head, a decent car, technology and freedom. I am truly grateful for the things I have and the people in my life. Feeling successful will empower me to more and greater success.
Every day is a new day. And every day is a chance for new success. There is work to be done. As always, thank you for crossing the bridges with me.
GOAL LOG – Week 37:
Diet: Mostly back on track and writing it out again.
Exercise: Fencing two days, three days at the gym, one exceptional hike.
Writing: The three blog posts were done; several days of writing in the sci-fi story.
Meditation: Five of seven days last week, never less than 10 minutes.
Gratitude: I was grateful for 5 things a day, over 5 days.
This is the fifty-second entry of my personal journey, the Crossing the Bridges series. My collectively published writing can be found here.
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