I just did the thing...I submitted my picture book to an Agent. I have a goal to submit to at least one agent / week. (I had previously made the goal to submit to 5 agents / week - but luckily someone told me that 1 / week was probably more feasible...with you know...life happening).
We leave in two days for a soccer tournament, and there are 107 things to do before we leave. There was every reason NOT to sit down and submit it...which is probably why I did it. I am the world's best procrastinator when it comes to packing.
Seriously though, I think these are the things that I'm learning:
- when I want to write creatively, the kitchen table or the couch is great. I can't write creatively in the office - the office is for business work (finance / invoices / billing). My mind literally cannot be creative in there
- write without trying to be a genius. if I keep writing each day (or at least most days), stories start to creep up. I started writing a new story today based of my son, which was pretty exciting. Once I had done that for an hour, I felt so good that I switched over to my Picture Book - and decided I could submit it.
- Silence the voice in my head that says "this story isn't good enough - you're too old - why are you doing this?" Silence it by these things: starting to write / read a book (any sort of book!), and also - remember the thrill of getting the email that my essay would be published! Greatest feeling! Remember I'm writing to share a love of life with others - and it's worth it to keep pushing along.
- Going into that a bit more: I read once that in order to be a great writer, you truly have to love people. I have grown to love that - the more I just lean into living, and learning, and enjoying people - and appreciating their journey - the more I discover through writing. The story today with my son - it was a great way to understand what he is going through right now. I started it not knowing a couple things about what he must be experiencing, and just imagining what he was thinking was helpful to me.
- for much of my life, I compared myself to everyone, and felt I came up very short. In the last few months, I've started to realize, "Huh...I am actually intelligent, a great reader, an insightful thinker, and I have something more to give!" It's been an amazing shift. I'm starting to understand how God sees me, and let go of my own short-sighted beliefs in myself that I picked up somewhere in my journey of life. I had plenty of people that believed in me, for sure, but I think I'm finally believing in myself - and not wanting to give up.
That's all for today. Just really proud of myself for submitting, and excited to keep submitting the picture book, and to start submitting the tween book.
